Wrought iron
Wood & steel frame
Farm & ranch
Sliding driveway gates
LiftMaster operatorsFree on-site gate assessment - hinges, posts, and your LiftMaster or Nice gate operator checked before anything is quoted
The assessment is free and the quote is the invoice.
Get your free estimateFast, Reliable Gate Repair Across Novato
Gate repair in Novato usually costs between $185 and $650 depending on what failed, and most jobs are completed the same day we arrive. We serve every part of Novato, from Hamilton’s flat 1970s ranchers to the steeper hillside properties in Ignacio and Indian Valley. If your gate is sagging at the latch, grinding on its track, or dead after a Pacific Gas & Electric outage, call us at (628) 227-2771. We’ll give you a written price before any work starts.
Why Latch and Post Gate Repair San Francisco Is Novato’s Preferred Gate Repair Company
Our Gate Repair team has worked on enough Novato properties to know the two failure patterns this city produces more than almost anywhere else in Marin. In Hamilton, the original tubular steel gates from the 1970s are now rusting through at the welds after fifty years of bay fog. In the Ignacio hills, automatic openers burn out motors from constant cycling on steep driveways. We stock the parts for both problems, so we’re not waiting on a warehouse in Sacramento while your gate hangs open.
Our technicians are factory-trained on the brands Novato families actually own: Linear, Viking, Ghost Controls, and DoorKing among them. Every job is backed by the 365-Day Done Right Promise. If the repair isn’t right, we make it right. No argument, no fine print. Every call is answered by a live person, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. No voicemail, no callback queue.
Our crews serve Novato locally, with dispatch support from the brand’s San Francisco Bay Area office. Cody Beckman leads our team, and the standard he sets is simple: a written price before work begins, shoe covers and drop cloths inside your home, and a photo of the clean-up before we leave. That’s the Cedarwell C.A.R.E. routine on every visit.
Styles & brands we work with
Iron Gate Repair in Novato
Iron gate repair in Novato is usually a rust-and-weld problem rather than a mechanical one. The bay fog that settles over Hamilton and the flats every morning carries salt air that works into weld joints, and after decades the metal fails right where it was joined. The gate may still look fine from the driveway, but the hinge post has lost its grip, and the gate starts sagging until it catches on the latch or drags across the concrete. We repair this by cutting out the rotted section, welding in new steel, and reinforcing the hinge post where the wind load has been levering against it. Most iron gate repairs run $250 to $550 depending on how many welds have failed and whether the post needs to be re-set in fresh concrete.
If a Novato homeowner calls us early, before the gate has sagged far enough to damage the latch, the repair stays simpler and cheaper. If the gate has been sagging for a year, the latch is usually worn out too, and that adds $85 to $140 for the replacement part and labor.
Weld & Rust Repair
Rust at the bottom rail and at the hinge-side welds is the most common iron gate failure we see in Novato, especially in Hamilton where the original builders used thin-wall tubing. We grind the rust back to clean metal, weld the joints solid, and prime and paint the repair so it doesn’t rust again in two seasons.
Hinge & Post Repair
Wind load against a solid infill gate levers the hinge post out of plumb in saturated clay, and Novato’s wet winters make that worse. We re-set posts with new concrete and stronger hinge hardware so the gate doesn’t bind at the latch again.
Sliding Gate Repair in Novato
Sliding gate repair in Novato is typically about the track and the motor. The low-lying flat areas around Hamilton sit on clay that swells and settles through wet winters, and post footings shift enough that rack-and-pinion slide gates start jumping the track. When that happens, the gate slams, grinds, or refuses to move at all, and forcing it by hand usually strips the rack teeth or burns out the motor. We re-level the track, reset the posts, and re-tune the limit switches so the gate travels smoothly. Most sliding gate repairs run $225 to $625 depending on whether the track needs re-bedding or just the operator needs service.
Gate Realignment
A slide gate that binds halfway through its travel is usually out of alignment because the ground under the track moved. We measure the gap between the gate and the rail, find where it’s off, and reset the track or the roller plates so the gate doesn’t fight itself on every cycle.
Automatic Gate Repair
Automatic openers on Novato hillside homes work harder than the same unit on flat ground. A DoorKing or Linear operator on a steep Ignacio driveway cycles more often and against more resistance, and that’s what shortens motor life. We replace motors, boards, and limit switches, and we’ll tell you if the opener you have is undersized for the slope you’re asking it to climb.
Trusted Brands We Service in Novato
Our technicians are trained on the brands Novato homeowners actually have installed: Linear, Viking, Ghost Controls, and DoorKing, along with LiftMaster, FAAC, BFT, and Mighty Mule. Because we concentrate on gate repair rather than general handyman work, we keep a local stock of the control boards, limit switches, and safety photocells those brands use. That means less waiting on a parts truck and more jobs finished the day we show up. Here’s the honest detail: when a Linear control board fries during a windstorm, we’d rather have the replacement on the truck than tell you it’s three days out.
See the difference
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AfterCommon Gate Repair Problems We See in Novato Homes
- Wind load on solid infill gates: Novato sits between the Marin hills and San Pablo Bay, and the wind that comes through the Petaluma Gap pushes hard against solid gate panels. A 6-foot solid steel gate acts like a sail, and every windy winter levers the hinge post a little further out of plumb until the gate won’t latch.
- Rust at Hamilton’s original weld joints: The tubular steel gates installed across Hamilton in the 1970s are now failing at the welds, especially where the horizontal rails meet the vertical pickets near the bottom. Bay fog sits on these gates every summer morning, and the metal has been thinning for decades.
- Slide gates jumping the track: The clay soil in Novato’s lower areas swells with winter rain and contracts through the dry summer, and over a few seasons the track shifts enough that the gate’s rack jumps the pinion. Homeowners hear a pop, then the motor just spins.
- Motor burnout on steep driveways: Gates on Ignacio hillside driveways cycle more times per day than flatland gates, and the motor has to push against gravity every time it opens. Power surges during windy conditions knock out boards, and a motor that was already running hot fails right after.
Pricing for Gate Repair in Novato, CA
Here are straight numbers for the jobs we do most often in Novato. A latch and realignment repair runs $185 to $300. Hinge post reinforcement with new concrete runs $325 to $475. A slide gate track re-bedding is $350 to $550. A rust repair with one or two welds and paint runs $250 to $400. A full control board replacement on an automatic opener runs $275 to $450 including programming. The exact number for your gate is always on a written quote we hand you before any work begins. We never start a job without that signed quote, and the price doesn’t change unless the scope changes and you approve it in writing first.
Call (628) 227-2771 for a free estimate, and you’ll know the exact number before we touch your gate.
We Also Serve Cities Near Novato
Our Gate Repair in Novato service area also covers the communities around it: San Rafael, Vallejo, San Pablo, and Richmond. The same Cedarwell C.A.R.E. routine applies everywhere we work: written price first, shoe covers and drop cloths inside your home, and a cleanup photo before we leave.
Serving Novato, CA - Our Local Coverage Area
We’re based in the Novato area and know this community well. Use the map below to see our service coverage - if you’re nearby, we can almost certainly help.
FAQs About Gate Repair in Novato
A sagging gate usually means the hinge post has moved, not that the hinges bent. In Novato, saturated winter clay lets post footings shift under wind load, particularly when a solid gate has been catching the wind like a sail all winter. The fix is to re-set the post in fresh concrete and re-hang the gate level, then replace the latch if it’s been ground down from the sag. Call (628) 227-2771 for a free estimate.
Stand to the side of the gate, never in its travel path, and use the manual release handle on the operator or the slide gate’s release lever to disengage the motor. Then move the gate slowly by hand while keeping clearance near the wheels and track. If the gate has a battery backup, it may still be functional and you should not force it. For any uncertainty about the release mechanism on your specific opener, call us and we’ll walk you through it.
In many cases, yes. If the rust is limited to a few weld joints and the tubing itself still has wall thickness, we grind back to clean metal, weld in new material, and paint the repair. If the rust has spread through the bottom rail or the hinge post, replacement sections cost less than a full new gate and we can match the original profile. We’ll show you the difference on the written quote.
Steep driveways make the motor work harder and cycle more often, and wind-driven power surges in the Ignacio hills knock out control boards that then take the motor with them. If this keeps happening, the fix is usually a heavier-duty operator sized for the slope plus a surge suppressor on the power line. We’ll evaluate the gate’s weight and travel length and give you a direct recommendation.
First check the manual release to make sure the operator is engaged. Then look at the rack or chain to see if it’s seated on the pinion or sprocket. In Novato’s windy weather, a solid gate can flex enough to pull the rack off the pinion, and the motor just freewheels. If the rack looks fine, the operator’s internal limit switch or gear likely failed under the wind load. Call (628) 227-2771 and we’ll diagnose it on site.
After a fall or winter storm rolls through Novato, walk your gate twice before you press the remote again. First, look at the hinge post where it meets the concrete. Wind load against a solid infill panel levers that post over time, and a fresh storm can move it enough that the gate starts binding at the latch. Second, check the track on a slide gate for debris and for pitting where the rack has been jumping. If the gate has been out of alignment for months, one more windy night is often what finishes the rack or the gearbox.
If PG&E has cut power to your neighborhood and you need to get a vehicle out, use the manual release on the operator. It’s a handle or a pull-chain on swing gates, and usually a lever on slide gates. Move the gate by hand to the open position and, if you can, brace it so it doesn’t swing shut with the wind. When power returns, re-engage the release, but check the gate’s travel path first. A gate that was pushed open during a storm often comes back out of alignment, and running the operator into a misaligned gate is how boards get fried and gearboxes get stripped.
We rebuilt a LiftMaster slide gate operator on a steep Ignacio driveway after high winds and a power surge fried the control board, then welded and reinforced the rusted hinge post on a Hamilton rancher’s original tubular steel swing gate that had sagged past the latch. Both jobs finished same-day with loop detectors re-tuned and safety photocells verified under UL 325.
This is the detail that matters: every gate we repair or install gets a final safety check on the entrapment protection. That’s not a form we file and forget. It’s a photocell we aim, a loop detector we tune, and a force test we run with the gate under load. If the gate doesn’t stop and reverse the way the UL 325 standard says it should, we don’t call the job done. We call it not done yet, and we fix it before we leave.
When our technician arrives, here’s what happens in order. You get a written price before any work begins. Before we step inside for any reason, we put on shoe covers and lay drop cloths on the floor. We ask before we move or touch anything that isn’t the gate. We keep our tools quiet when kids are asleep or pets are nervous. We use pet-safe lubricants where there’s a choice. Before we leave, we take a photo of the clean-up and hand it to you. That’s not an upgrade. It’s the standard every job follows, and it’s why our customers in Novato keep our number in their phone.
If your gate is sagging, grinding, dead after a power cut, or just not closing the way it used to, call (628) 227-2771. We serve every neighborhood in Novato, from Hamilton to Ignacio to Indian Valley, and we’ll give you a written price before any work begins. Live person answers, 24 hours a day. The 365-Day Done Right Promise covers every job. If we don’t do it right, we make it right.
Written by Cody Beckman, Owner at Latch and Post Gate Repair San Francisco, serving Novato since 2009.