San Antonio Expert Fence handles automatic gate installation across San Antonio and the cities around it, from a new swing or slide gate with its opener to an opener added to a gate you already have.
San Antonio Expert Fence looks at three things before recommending a powered gate for your driveway: where the gate can sit on your lot, how much room and slope the driveway gives it, and how the opener is going to get its power. The spot comes first, because the city's front-yard rules decide where a gate can go, and a historic district or an HOA can add rules of its own.
If you already have a driveway gate and you're tired of getting out of the car to open it, an opener can often be added to it, as long as the gate itself is in good working shape. Sometimes a hinge or a post needs attention first, and if yours does, we'll tell you before anything else is done.
Send the form with a line about what you have in mind, a new gate with an opener or an opener for the gate you already have, and we'll call you back to find a time to come out.
We measure the opening, check how the driveway slopes and how much room there is beside it and behind it, and note how far the gate would be from power at the house.
You get one price for the gate, the opener, the safety sensors and anything you add, like a keypad or a walk gate, and nothing is ordered until you've said yes.
When the job needs the city's fence permit, we take care of it. Running power out to the opener goes to a licensed electrician.
The posts are set in concrete, the gate is hung or set on its track, and the opener and sensors are mounted and wired to it.
We run the gate open and closed, check that the sensors stop and reverse it, and show you the manual release and how the remotes work.
Both kinds run on an opener and both work well at a house. Which one suits yours mostly comes down to how much room there is around the driveway and whether it slopes.
A lot of driveways rise or fall a little from the street to the house, and that's where the choice usually gets made. A swing gate on a driveway that climbs behind it can run into the pavement before it's all the way open. A slide gate moves across the slope instead of up into it, so on a sloped or uneven drive it's usually the better fit. On a flat drive with room to spare, either one will do the job, and it comes down to the look you like and how the gate sits with your fence.
A cantilever gate is a kind of slide gate that needs extra width beside the opening to balance its weight. You'll mostly see them on large properties. If a cantilever makes sense for your driveway, we'll talk it through at the visit, and whichever kind you choose, we size the opener to the gate.
Where a gate goes matters as much as which gate you pick, and on a San Antonio lot a few rules decide it. We work out the spot before we price anything, so the gate you plan around is one that can actually go there.
The city counts everything in front of the front face of your house as the front yard, and a driveway gate there is held to the front-yard fence limits: 3 feet tall if it's solid, or 5 feet if it's open, like wrought iron or steel pickets. The city also keeps a 15-foot clear vision area where a driveway meets the street, so a gate or fence close to the curb can need a variance. A gate taller than the front-yard limit, or one inside that clear area, goes to the city's Board of Adjustment for a special exception or a variance, and approval isn't guaranteed. It's usually simpler to plan a gate that fits the rules from the start, and that can mean setting it farther back from the street.
If your home is in one of San Antonio's historic districts, the city's historic preservation office has a fences policy guide that places vehicle gates behind the front of the house rather than across the front of the driveway. There are a few exceptions, like a home with a wraparound porch or a driveway under 10 feet wide. Your fence permit is reviewed by that office too, so we plan the gate to its guide from the first measurement.
Texas law lets an HOA require a driveway gate to sit at least 10 feet back from the right-of-way where the driveway meets a road with marked lanes, and your association can also have its own rules about the style of fence and gate. If your HOA wants to see the gate before it approves it, we can draw it up and list the materials for the board.
These typical Texas installed prices are a starting point for what an automatic driveway gate costs in San Antonio. The size and material of the gate, along with the opener it needs, usually decide where your price lands.
| Item | Typical price | Unit |
|---|---|---|
| Electric driveway gate, gate and opener | $2,400–$4,900 | each, installed |
| Opener added to a gate you already have | $390–$5,300 | each, installed |
| Keypad | $390–$780 | each, installed |
| Safety sensors | $190–$1,900 | installed |
| Powered gate repair | $530–$1,500 | per repair |
Running power to the gate, including any trenching, is priced at the visit, because it depends on how far the gate sits from power at the house. Try the cost calculator.
Every opener needs power, and there are two usual ways to get it to the gate: a line run out from the house, or a solar panel that keeps a battery charged. Which one makes sense depends on how far the gate is from the house, how much the gate gets used, and how much sun reaches it.
Running power to a gate opener is electrical work, and in San Antonio it goes to a licensed electrician. A gate near the house is usually a short, simple run, and one at the far end of a long driveway takes more digging and more wire. We plan the gate and opener around where the power needs to reach, so the electrician's part fits in with ours.
Solar is a good fit for a gate that's a long way from house power, on a lighter-duty opener that isn't opening and closing all day. The catch is the panel, which needs open sky with no shade on it for the whole day. In a yard under a big live oak, that can mean mounting the panel somewhere sunnier than the gate post, or choosing wired power instead. How many panels a gate needs depends on whether it's a single or double gate, how often it opens, and what accessories it's running, so we size the panel at the visit.
Many openers carry a backup battery, and heat is hard on the sealed batteries they use. Plan on replacing it every few years, and a San Antonio summer is part of the reason. It's an inexpensive part, and we'll show you where it lives so it's easy to keep up with.
A driveway gate is a heavy thing to have moving on its own, and the openers made today are built around keeping it from closing on anyone. Since 2016, the safety standard for swing and slide gate openers has called for at least two ways of protecting against someone getting caught, in both the opening and the closing direction. An opener made since then checks for those devices every time the gate opens and closes, and it won't run without them.
What that looks like on your gate:
The standard isn't retroactive, so an opener that's working well doesn't have to be replaced just because the rules changed. That said, an opener made before 2000 is generally worth replacing, since it may not be able to accept today's safety sensors. If yours is that old, we'll look at it with you and talk through the options.
Gate openers are made for cars. Anyone walking in, whether it's you with the dog or a neighbor dropping something off, should have a separate gate for people on foot. A walk gate beside the driveway gate is a common addition, and it's easy to plan in at the same time.
Gates at an apartment complex or a neighborhood entrance usually take a heavier-duty opener built for constant use. Those, and fire lane gates, are on our commercial fencing page.
For a new gate, usually two, and neither is something you need to chase. The city holds a driveway gate to its front-yard fence rules, and a new fence inside the city needs a fence permit, which we take care of. Running power out to the opener needs its own electrical permit, pulled by the licensed electrician who does that work. In a historic district, the preservation office has a say on the fence permit as well.
In a lot of cases, yes. What matters is the gate itself: it has to move freely and evenly by hand in both directions, hang from posts that are solid, and be built sturdily enough to take a motor pulling on it every day. We'll open and close it with you at the visit to see how it behaves. If your gate wasn't built to carry a motor, a new gate made for an opener may be the better choice.
Most powered gates have a backup system, often a battery, that keeps the gate working for a while, though with fewer functions than normal. Past that, a release disconnects the opener so you can push the gate by hand like any other gate. Use it only when the gate is standing still, never while it's moving. You'll have tried it yourself on the day the gate goes in, so it isn't a mystery the first time the lights go out.
Remotes are the everyday way in, clipped to a visor or kept in the car. A keypad is handy for people who don't carry one, like family members, a dog walker or someone delivering to the house, since you can give them a code instead of a remote. We set the keypad back from the gate, far enough that nobody can touch the gate while they're pressing buttons, and where they can see the gate as it moves.
Where a repair lands in the price range above depends on which part has stopped working: the opener, one of the sensors, the wiring, or the gate itself dragging on a hinge or a track. We start by finding out which it is, so you're paying to fix the part that's actually causing the trouble. If an aging opener turns out to be the problem, we'll price a replacement next to the repair so you can compare.
We take automatic gate jobs across San Antonio and in the nearby cities below. When your home is in one of those cities, the gate is planned to that city's own fence rules.
Whether it's a new gate or an opener for the one you have, tell us a little about your driveway and we'll set up a time to come see it.
San Antonio Expert Fence is a fence company in San Antonio, Texas, for homes, businesses and HOAs. We repair fences and build new ones, and every job starts with a free visit and a written price.
Each city around San Antonio writes its own fence rules, and we plan every fence to the ones where your home is.
