Austin Metal Gates provides driveway gate installation in Austin, TX, and is Travis County's leading installer of residential entry gates, specializing in reinforced concrete footings, masonry gate columns and swing arc layout. We offer complete site preparation and on-site hanging of the gate.
Our team provides one plan that covers the survey, the locates and the approvals, delivering a gate that stands plumb for homeowners and a clean, permitted entry for both residential and commercial projects. The same crew that surveys your drive sets the posts and hangs the gate, every operator we wire is listed to UL 325, and a written warranty comes with the work.
From the first stake in the ground to the final latch adjustment, our team handles every detail. Serving Austin along with West Lake Hills, Volente and The Hills, we install driveway gates on hillside limestone lots and on flat clay ground alike.
Why Austin Metal Gates
No stock panels cut down to fit, and no handoffs. The crew that measures your opening builds and installs the gate.
The right spot for a driveway gate is set by the property line, the street and the room a car needs to wait, not by where the old fence happened to end. We start every job by finding the line, measuring the drive and marking the arc each leaf will sweep.
Texas Senate Bill 711, in effect since September 1, 2025, lets a property owners' association require a driveway gate to sit 10 feet back from the right-of-way where the drive meets a laned road. Inside that rule, and inside any stricter city code, we look at three things on the ground:
The stakes and string go in during the site visit, so you can stand where the gate will stand and walk the arc before you commit.
Nothing gets dug until the buried lines are marked. Texas law requires anyone excavating, even in their own yard, to contact 811 at least two business days before digging, not counting weekends and holidays, and the call is free. We place that request ourselves and wait for the flags before a post hole is started. What we hit after the flags depends on which side of town the drive sits. Austin straddles the Balcones Fault, and the ground changes across it:
The hills west of I-35 are mostly limestone under a thin layer of topsoil. A post hole there is often cut into rock, which holds a footing well but needs a rock auger or a core drill instead of a standard bit. Rock also changes how deep the hole has to go, since a socket in sound limestone grips harder than the same depth in loose fill.
The flatter east side sits on heavy clay and loam. Expansive clay swells when it gets wet and shrinks when it dries, and that movement pushes up and sideways on anything set in it. A shallow footing in that ground can heave, which shows up later as a gate that drags in a wet spring and gaps in a dry August. The usual cure is a deeper footing that reaches below the soil that moves, with drainage graded away from the post. We tell you which ground you have at the site visit and size the holes to it, rather than using one depth for every address.
A leaf hangs off one post, so that post carries the full weight of the gate at the end of a lever. When a driveway gate starts to sag, the cause is usually a footing that moved, not a gate that bent.
On every install we set the footing to the leaf it will carry:
Concrete reaches most of its final strength within about four weeks and has to stay damp while it cures, which matters in a Texas summer when a fresh pour can dry too fast and crack. For that reason we can pour footings on one visit and come back to hang the leaves once the concrete has had time to gain strength.
A square steel post set in concrete is the plain choice and works on most drives. Many Austin owners want stone or stucco columns instead, to match the house. A column is built around a steel core or with embedded hinge plates, so the gate hangs from steel and the stone stays a finish, not the structure. We coordinate the column with your mason or build the core ourselves, so the hinge points land where the drawing put them.
Who approves a driveway gate depends on the city, the neighborhood and the fire district, and the answer can be three different offices for one address. We find out who signs off before a hole is dug, because a gate that has to come out after an HOA objects is the most expensive gate you can buy.
A few of the rules we work through on drives around Austin:
For a lot inside Austin itself, the city's own fence and driveway rules apply, along with any deed restrictions on the subdivision. We bring a drawing of the gate, the columns and the setback to whoever needs to see it, so the approval is for the exact gate that gets built.
The question to settle early is whether this driveway gate will ever have a motor, because that decision changes the posts, the footing and the trench. Adding power to a drive that was never planned for it means cutting the concrete you just paid for.
A manual gate needs a solid latch, a cane bolt or drop rod and a stop that keeps the leaf from swinging past closed. It costs less on day one and has nothing to wire or service. It also means getting out of the car to open it, which is the deciding point for most families with a long drive.
If an operator is coming, now or later, we plan for it at install:
When you want the full motor, keypad and safety layout planned now, our automatic driveway gate page walks through that side of the job.
The site work, not the gate itself, is usually what moves an installation estimate the most. Two identical gates can be priced far apart because one goes into soft fill on a flat drive and the other into rock on a slope with an HOA review.
The things that move an estimate up or down:
These are estimate drivers, not prices. We measure the opening and look at the ground at the site visit, and the written quote that follows sets the price for your drive.
Most of the work on a driveway gate happens before the leaves arrive, so install day is about fitting, not guessing. Here is the order we follow:
If a step needs another office to sign, we tell you where it stands rather than leaving you to chase it.
The process
Four steps, and nothing is fabricated until you have signed off on the drawings and the price.
We measure the opening, the slope and where power can reach, and talk through style, automation and access.
You get scaled drawings for your approval and for any HOA or city review, with one written price.
Steel is cut and welded to the approved drawings, then galvanized, powder coated or both.
Columns and posts set, gate hung, operator set up to UL 325 and every safety device tested with you.
Questions
It depends on the city and the neighborhood. Lakeway and Volente issue fence permits, West Lake Hills has its own gate rules, and many subdivisions need HOA or POA approval first. We check which ones apply to your address before any work starts.
Under Texas SB 711, an HOA can require 10 feet from the right-of-way where the drive meets a laned road. Some cities ask for room to stop off the street. We measure for the stricter rule on your lot.
Yes, with the right layout. A drive that falls across the opening can take a rising hinge, a stepped bottom rail or a leaf shaped to the grade, and a steep climb may suit a sliding gate better than a swing gate.
Most sag comes from a hinge post footing that moved, often in clay that swells and shrinks with the weather. A deeper footing sized to the leaf, with drainage away from the post, keeps the gate plumb.
Sometimes. We check whether the columns have a steel core or a solid base that can carry the leaf. If they are only a stone shell, we usually add a steel post or rebuild the column core first.
We recommend it. Laying conduit and sizing the hinge post for a motor costs little while the ground is open, and it saves cutting the drive when you add an operator later.
Yes. Where a trench from the house would be long or run through rock, a solar panel and battery can run the operator. We look at sun exposure and how often the gate opens before suggesting it.
It depends on approvals and on the concrete. Footings usually need time to cure before the leaves go up, so the posts are often set on one visit and the gate is hung on a later one. Your quote lays out the steps for your drive.
Free on-site measure across Austin and the west side. We call you back to set a time.
Calls only, we do not receive text messages.
