Fitting new gates on a French driveway does not have to be hard work

I have admired a lot of old gates but I never really thought much about how they were attached to their corresponding posts, until I had to do the job myself. It is not that difficult, but it does require concentration.

As I explained in my most recent articles, I built the posts before I had the gate to fit between them, because otherwise the job would have been left permanently undone. I simply assumed I would be able to adapt any gate I bought as necessary and I wasn't far wrong.

A brick-by-brick guide to making rustic-style French gateposts

I found the gates for sale secondhand online. They weren’t as old and ornate as I would have liked them to be but the price was irresistible and they were close enough for me to pick them up with a borrowed trailer. 

My only stipulations while searching the web was that they should be made of metal; should not be too corroded; and they would cover the gap of 3.5m (plus a few centimetres of play) that I had left between my brick-clad gateposts. 

Prepare the gates

Gates are moving parts and they suffer from wear and tear. These were slightly warped but not enough to prevent them doing their job.

The gates needed a bit of work before they could be fitted. There was some rust and flaking metal to be scraped and sanded off before they could be painted. 

I also had to take the angle grinder to them and saw off two extensions that had been welded on to make them longer.

Now to put them in place. There are essentially three ways to do this. 

Heavy old gates were often attached to an iron strap around the gateposts so that the weight of them wouldn't be concentrated in one spot. 

Read more: Where can I find cheap DIY tools in France?

Many fitters of today like to hang their gates from the back of the posts because this means they can be opened wide and wedged out of the way. My secondhand gates weren’t long enough to do that and, besides, they came with fittings to attach them to the two parallel facing sides of the gateposts. That’s where they would have to go.

I was lucky that the gates had come with a set of sturdy fittings (made by ING Fixations – ingfixations.fr) to fix them to the ground at the bottom and to 16mm bolts, goujons d’ancrage, drilled into the gatepost at the top. 

However, the bolts supplied were a little too short (12cm) to allow adjustment of these particular gates in relation to the gateposts and I had to go looking for much longer ones (22cm, to allow some surplus to cut them to size). 

I tried general purpose DIY shops with no luck and then quincailleries (hardware shops) but surprisingly they couldn't help either. 

Ask for help

I finally tracked down what I wanted on the website of a specialist supplier, Tout Brico in Toulouse (toutbrico.com). The staff couldn't have been more helpful and they sent me a package on request.

At this point, I brought in my regular DIY advisor/friend who happens to be an inspector of large-scale engineering problems and as such is meticulous in his measurements and demanding in his adjustments. 

There was quite a lot of greasing, fiddling and trial opening and closing to be done, as we fine-tuned everything using a heavy duty spanner to ensure there were only gaps where there were meant to be gaps. 

Finally, the gates swung easily open and then shut again with a snug click. 

As with all the best home improvements, I now look at my gates, gateposts and connecting walls and wonder how we ever lived with an amorphous gap as the entrance to our drive.