Driveway Gates in Burnaby
Custom steel and aluminum driveway gates designed, welded and installed for Burnaby homes, townhouses and stratas — built to your opening, not cut down from stock.
A driveway gate is one of the few things on a property that has to work every single day, in every kind of weather, and still look like it belongs to the house. We build them from scratch in our North Vancouver shop and install them across Burnaby — from the older lots on Capitol Hill and Burnaby Heights to the newer builds around Brentwood, Metrotown and Burnaby Mountain.
What we build for Burnaby driveways
Swing gates. Single or double leaf. The simplest and most reliable arrangement when there is room for the leaves to open without hitting a slope or a parked car.
Slide and cantilever gates. The answer when the driveway rises steeply from the street or there is no room to swing. Burnaby has plenty of both, particularly on the hillside streets.
Bi-fold and stacking gates. Used where the opening is wide but the setback is short.
Parkade and shared-entry gates. A large part of our Burnaby work is multi-family: townhouse complexes and strata buildings where the gate is in constant use and downtime is a real problem.
Slope is the thing that decides the design
Much of Burnaby sits on a hill. Capitol Hill, Burnaby Mountain and the streets running down toward Burrard Inlet all produce driveways that climb or fall away from the road, and that single fact changes the gate more than any styling decision.
A swing gate on a rising driveway will catch on the asphalt before it is halfway open unless the swing is planned around the grade. The usual answers are to raise the bottom rail, to hang the leaf so it rises as it opens, or to stop fighting the slope and slide the gate instead. Which one is right depends on the actual measurements at your opening, which is why we measure on site before quoting rather than working from a photo.
Posts and foundations — where gates actually fail
Most failed driveway gates we are called to look at did not fail at the gate. They failed at the post. A double driveway gate is a long lever, and everything it does all day is transferred into the post and whatever the post is standing in.
Getting that right means sizing the post to the leaf rather than to habit, and setting it in a footing that suits the ground it is going into. Burnaby soil varies a lot across the city, and a footing that is fine on a flat lot near Deer Lake is not automatically right on a hillside cut. We look at what is already there — existing concrete, a retaining wall, a masonry pier — before deciding whether we can use it or need to start again.
Coastal weather and finish
This is a wet climate, and a driveway gate spends its whole life outdoors. Finish is not decoration — it is what decides whether you are still happy with the gate in ten years.
We build in steel, aluminum and stainless. Steel is the strongest and most economical for a large leaf, and it needs a proper coating system to stay that way. Aluminum will not rust and is lighter, which matters on a wide leaf or an automated gate. Where a gate is close to the inlet and takes salt air, that pushes the specification further. We finish with hot-dip galvanizing, powder coat, or a paint system depending on the piece and the exposure.
Automation
If the gate is going to be automated, that has to be decided before it is built, not after. An operator changes the weight the hinges carry, how the leaf is braced, and where the conduit needs to run. Retro-fitting an operator to a gate that was never designed for one is the most common reason an automated gate sags or binds.
We build the gate, the posts and the hardware to suit the operator, and coordinate with your automation and electrical trades so the conduit, power and safety devices are allowed for while the opening is still open. We fabricate and install the metalwork; the operator itself is supplied and commissioned by the automation specialist.
Strata and townhouse gates
Burnaby has a large amount of townhouse and strata housing, and a shared driveway gate is a different job from a single-family one. It cycles far more often, it usually cannot be taken out of service for long, and the people approving the work are a council or a property manager rather than a homeowner.
We are used to that: measuring around resident access, staging the work so the entry stays usable, and giving a written scope that a council can actually review. Our wider Burnaby work is covered on our metal fabrication in Burnaby page.
Permits, bylaws and approvals
Whether a driveway gate needs a permit, and what height and setback rules apply, depends on the property, the zoning and the scope of the work — and in Burnaby those requirements come from the City of Burnaby as the authority having jurisdiction. Strata properties usually have their own approval process on top of that.
We will not tell you from a web page what applies to your address. What we will do is raise it early, tell you what we have seen on similar openings, and where a requirement needs confirming, point you at the right department or recommend a review before anything is fabricated.
How the job runs
- We come out, measure the opening, and look at the slope, the posts and what the gate has to fix into.
- You get a written quote against a defined scope — gate, posts, hardware, finish and install.
- We draw it, confirm the details with you, and fabricate in our own shop.
- Finish is applied, then we install and hang the gate ourselves.
One shop, one crew, one point of contact. Nothing gets handed between trades halfway through.
Repairing an existing Burnaby gate
If your gate is sagging, dragging, or the hinges have worn, it can often be repaired rather than replaced — see metal gate repair. If the frame has rusted through or the design no longer suits the opening, a new gate is usually the better value.
Browse the gate design catalogue
Thirty-nine gate designs, each with a model number, filterable by style, material and whether the gate swings or slides. Most of the steel gates we build in Burnaby start as one of these and get worked to the opening: see the gate design catalogue. Pick one, hit request, and the model number arrives with your enquiry so we both know what we are talking about.
Gates elsewhere in Metro Vancouver
We also build driveway gates in Vancouver and Coquitlam. For gate types, materials, hardware and design detail across all of our work, start at North Vancouver, West Vancouver and custom metal gates.
We also build driveway gates in Surrey, including South Surrey and Cloverdale, where wider frontages often make a sliding gate the better answer.
Get a price on your Burnaby driveway gate
Send us the width of the opening, a photo taken from the street, and a note on whether the driveway is flat or on a slope. Request a quote or call (778) 805-5333. For budget ranges before you enquire, see our gate cost guide.