Large single swing gate design

[cwylie]

So I am building this fence on the side of my house and this idea looked good in my head but now looking at it I dont know if my bracing is going to cut it. The big steel post on the right is 4x4 .25 wall sunk 3 feet deep with 2 4 foot outriggers in the closed and open positions. Its all sunk and 28 80 pound bag of concrete and rebar. I dont thing its going to move. The problem I am concerned with is the gate. I would really like to be single swing with no wheel but I dont know if I am going to be able to pull it off because of the distance of the span which is right at 13 feet. The gate is self it built out of 1x3 11ga steel tube and the current braces are 1x3 14ga.



If it were you how would you build you bracing on this? All the current braces are only tacked in and I am thinking about changing them up to the drawing I have attached. The red lines would be the new steel braces and the green line a cable and turn buckle.

[chevymike]

I did a single swing gate on my fence. It's 10' wide and has zero deflection. No turnbuckles needed with this design.

[cwylie]

What size is that steel?

[chevymike]

IIRC it was 1.5"x1.5" .065 wall.

If you are using rectangle tubing, you should use it with the wide side vertical, to resist any bending motion.

[cwylie]

Yeah I should have used it vertically and I think I also should have used a little thinner wall 2x3 vs the 1x3 I used. It really was one of those things in my head looked way better than it did once I built it.

[chevymike]

LOL... I know how that goes! Since I tend to overbuild things, one thing I did with my pivot post is, I used 1.5"x3" .250 wall tubing, sunk 24" in the ground with concrete and also attached it the one of the roof stringers with plate steel on both sides of the wood 2x4. I could likely hang a car off that post.

[shmoov69]

I'd also put a small cradle on the open side so it's not always just "hanging" from the hinges.

[MonzaRacer]

IF my mental calcs are right add more triangular bracing on middle upright, as Jimmy said make sure the latch is carrying weight off the hinges when closed. I dont see any real issues UNLESS the metal is too weak and starts breaking at hinges.
Kind of curious on how your attached/braced at hinge connection point. Depending on weight of what your putting on it you might want to think about some sort of roller on that large of span, if it gets real heavy.
I swa one gate like that and the owner had the planks/boards farther out from hinge milled thinner thus creating same illusion of build but decreasing weight. Like his inner boards were like 1/2 to 3/4 thick and outer ones were closer to 1/4 to 3/8 thick. One carpenter I asked said it was an old trick that many gate builders used, Just spacing outside everyone saw even but let inside show thickness variation.

[wayward]

Are you going to cover in wood to match the fence?

The tubing next the post is it the same thickness?

Would you be willing to change the perimeter frame to a vertical orientation? That tubing is just over 3# per foot.. You are going to need strategic bracing or take more advantage of the structure of the tubing..

But 13' is a very span-able area.. Keep in mind a lot of people use aluminum or very thin steel to keep the weight down..