Wood & steel frame
Sliding driveway gatesFree on-site gate assessment - hinges, posts, and your LiftMaster or Nice gate operator checked before anything is quoted
The assessment is free and the quote is the invoice.
Get your free estimateFast, Reliable Gate Repair Across Alamo Heights
A gate that won’t open, sags on its hinges, or groans mid-cycle is more than an inconvenience in Alamo Heights. It’s a security gap on a street where people notice. Calder Gate Repair San Antonio handles driveway gate repair, automatic gate repair, and gate welding across Alamo Heights, usually with same-day or next-morning dispatch. We know the estate gates off Broadway, the mid-century ranches near the Olmos Basin, and the specific ways Alamo Heights clay soil works against steel posts. Call (361) 314-4803 and a live person answers, day or night. We write your price down before a single bolt comes out.
Why Calder Gate Repair San Antonio Is Alamo Heights’s Preferred Gate Repair Company
Alamo Heights homeowners call us because we treat an old wrought-iron gate like the original feature it is, not scrap to be hauled off. Our Gate Repair team works on nine major opener brands, from LiftMaster to DoorKing to Ghost Controls. But we also understand the older gates that came with the house. The ones with hand-forged scrollwork, sagging hinge posts, and a 1990s control board that finally quit. Nico Alvarez leads our crews, and every technician arrives background-checked and in uniform with a live arrival time you can track from your phone. No four-hour windows. No mystery invoice. The Relay Standard applies here: live arrival updates, before-and-after photos, and a digital invoice you pay from a link.
Every job in Alamo Heights carries three written promises from Calder Gate Repair: a written price before any work starts, a written guarantee on the repair, and a free second visit if the repair fails within the 365-Day Done Right Promise window. That’s not a sales line. It’s on every invoice. For Alamo Heights, where gate hardware is often custom and aging, that second-visit promise matters. You’re not paying twice because a post settled again in the clay.
Styles & brands we work with


Driveway Gate Repair in Alamo Heights
Driveway Gate Repair in Alamo Heights typically runs $185 to $380 for hinge, latch, wheel, and alignment work before any parts. Most jobs are done same day. This is the bread-and-butter call we get from Alamo Heights: a swing gate that drags on the driveway, a slide gate that shudders halfway, or a gate that stops responding to the remote after a storm. The first 20 minutes on site are diagnostic. We find what moved, what wore, and what’s about to fail next month if we leave it alone.
A distinctive Alamo Heights issue: the city’s expansive clay soil expands and contracts with every wet-dry cycle. That movement is measurable. Many estate gates here develop a 1 to 2 inch sag at the latch side within a decade. The fix isn’t always grinding the latch plate higher. It’s often resetting the hinge post footing, which requires digging, re-pouring, and re-plumbing that post. If you skip the post and just adjust the panel, the gate will sag again in a year or two. We tell you that upfront, in writing, with a price attached. You decide.
Post Reset and Gate Realignment
When a swing gate sags in Alamo Heights, the first question is whether the hinges are worn or the post itself has moved. In this city, post movement is as common as rust. A post that’s moved out of plumb by even a few degrees forces the gate leaf to bind at the latch side. We reset the post in new concrete, re-align the gate to level, and adjust the travel limits on the opener so it no longer strains against the sag.
Mighty Mule and Ghost Controls Drives
Lighter residential gates around Alamo Heights ranches often use Mighty Mule or Ghost Controls swing-arm openers. These are decent units, but they’re sensitive operators. A post that’s moved just a little causes the arm to bind and draw more amperage. That burns through control boards and plastic drive gears. We align the gate first, then check the operator. Replacing the board without fixing the sticking gate just kills the new board in a month.
Gate Welding in Alamo Heights
Gate Welding in Alamo Heights runs $140 to $260 for most crack repairs, hinge re-welding, and ground-contact rust remediation. Larger fabrication jobs, like replacing a rusted bottom rail or reinforcing a sagging frame, run $450 to $900 depending on the amount of steel and finish work. Alamo Heights has no shortage of older iron gates with rust at the bottom rail where water sits after rain. Weld repair is often the right call: the rest of the gate is solid, and the original ornamental work is worth keeping.
We don’t cut out good iron to sell you a new gate. We show you the problem, explain what’s structurally sound, and weld only what needs welding. On Cambridge Oval and similar estate streets, we’ve saved gates that other companies quoted for full replacement. The welding is done on site, ground smooth, and primed to stop water from re-entering the joint. If the gate is beyond saving, we tell you that too. Replacement is sometimes cheaper than chasing rust forever.
Wrought Iron Crack Repair
Alamo Heights heat and humidity cause wrought iron to expand and contract slightly each day. Combine that with the ground shifting under the gate, and hairline cracks at welded joints turn into splits over a few seasons. A cracked upper arch or broken picket isn’t just cosmetic. It weakens the gate’s frame and lets moisture inside the hollow sections. We weld the cracks, reinforce the back side where it won’t show, and re-treat the area to stop flash rust.
Hinge and Ground-Contact Repair
The bottom hinge on an Alamo Heights driveway gate takes the most abuse. It carries the weight of the gate, sits close to splash water, and grinds whenever the gate moves. Once the hinge pin is worn, the gate drops and the opener fights the added friction. We replace worn pins or re-weld the hinge barrel to the gate frame, then re-align the gate so it swings freely. If the bottom rail itself is rusted thin, we cut it out and weld in new steel to match the profile.
Trusted Brands We Service in Alamo Heights
Most Alamo Heights gates are run by one of a handful of opener brands. We stock parts locally for Linear, Viking, Ghost Controls, and DoorKing. On this side of San Antonio, the older estates off Nacogdoches and Broadway often still run the original DoorKing or Linear operators installed in the 1990s. The circuit boards on those units degrade with age and humidity. We can retrofit a modern Linear or Viking board where the motor and gearbox are still serviceable, or swap the entire operator for a new unit while keeping the original gate leaf. Alamo Heights customers get faster turnaround because we don’t have to wait for a part to ship from a warehouse in Dallas.
See the difference
Before
After
Before
After
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AfterCommon Gate Repair Problems We See in Alamo Heights Homes
- Gate sag and latch bind from clay soil movement. Alamo Heights’s expansive clay soil pushes post footings slightly out of plumb during wet-dry cycles. Over a decade, a swing gate can drop 1 to 2 inches at the latch side. The fix is a hinge-post reset, not just a panel tweak.
- Obsolete 1990s control boards dying from humidity. DoorKing and Linear boards from that era didn’t love Texas humidity. Capacitor degradation and corrosion cause gates to stick mid-cycle with no error code. A board retrofit keeps the original gate and saves $600 to $1,200 versus a full operator swap.
- Rusted bottom rails and ground-contact iron failure. Estate gates in Alamo Heights sit close to ground where water pools after thunderstorms. The bottom rail and lower hinge are almost always the first steel to go. We cut out and re-weld these sections before the gate loses structural integrity.
- Gate openers straining after storms upset post alignments. A heavy rain event doesn’t just make grass grow. It can shift a driveway gate post a fraction of an inch. That small movement makes the opener work harder, tripping the safety sensors or burning out the motor capacitor. We re-align the gate and then re-tune the opener.
Pricing for Gate Repair in Alamo Heights, TX
| Repair Type | Typical Cost in Alamo Heights |
|---|---|
| Hinge, latch, or wheel repair | $185 – $380 |
| Post reset and gate realignment | $350 – $950 |
| Weld repair (cracks, ground contact) | $140 – $260 per section |
| Control board replacement / retrofit | $285 – $640 |
| Full opener replacement (operator only) | $850 – $2,300 installed, brand and HP dependent |
These are Alamo Heights market numbers. The gate’s size, the amount of rust, and whether the post has moved in the clay all factor into the written estimate. We never change the price at the door. The number on the invoice is the number you agreed to before we started. Call (361) 314-4803 for a free estimate. We come to Alamo Heights, look at the gate, and hand you a written line-item price.
We Also Serve Cities Near Alamo Heights
Calder Gate Repair works across the northeast San Antonio area. Beyond Alamo Heights, our crews regularly schedule service in San Antonio’s near-east suburbs, Cibolo, Helotes, and Selma. Dispatch is coordinated through the Calder Gate Repair San Antonio office, with technicians routed to your neighborhood based on live proximity. Call (361) 314-4803 and we’ll tell you exactly when your tech will arrive, not a four-hour window.
Serving Alamo Heights, TX - Our Local Coverage Area
We’re based in the Alamo Heights area and know this community well. Use the map below to see our service coverage - if you’re nearby, we can almost certainly help.
FAQs About Gate Repair in Alamo Heights
Nine times out of ten in Alamo Heights, the post is the problem. The city’s expansive clay soil shifts post footings slightly with every wet-dry cycle, and over a few years that movement drops the gate 1 to 2 inches at the latch side. Hinges wear too, but if the gate looks re-aligned and then sags again within a season or two, the post footing has moved. We reset the post in new concrete, then adjust the gate and opener. If it’s only the hinges, we’ll tell you that instead, and the repair is usually $185 to $380. Call (361) 314-4803 and we’ll diagnose it on site with a written price.
Usually, yes. If the gate leaf itself is sound, a retrofit saves real money. On a Cambridge Oval estate, our crew found a 1990s DoorKing swing gate operator dead from a corroded control board while the custom wrought-iron gate leaf was still in solid shape. We retrofitted a modern LiftMaster operator with safety photocells and a new rack and pinion drive, reusing the original gate and correcting the hinge post footing that had settled in the clay. A control board retrofit runs $285 to $640. A full operator replacement with the same gate runs $850 to $2,300 installed. We’ll tell you which is the cheaper answer for your specific setup, not just which one has a bigger invoice.
Automatic gates in Alamo Heights must meet the same Texas and federal safety standards as anywhere else: UL 325 compliance, safety photocells or contact edges that stop and reverse the gate on obstruction, and external entrapment protection sensors where required. Many of the older 1990s gate openers around here were installed before modern entrapment standards existed. If your gate opens or closes on its own with no sensors, it’s not up to current code and it’s dangerous for kids and pets. We upgrade the safety system as part of any opener retrofit. For a full assessment of your gate’s safety setup in Alamo Heights, call (361) 314-4803.
Alamo Heights gets intense summer sun, high humidity, and heavy rainstorms. Water splashes up from the driveway and sits on the bottom rail and hinge areas. The original paint or powder coat on older gates has already broken down, so the bare iron oxidizes quickly. Ground-contact points are the worst. The cure is cutting out the rusted section, welding in new steel, grinding it clean, and priming properly. On a vintage Alamo Heights gate, a bottom rail replacement and repaint before the rust spreads will outlast a cheap patch job by a decade. Weld repairs like this typically run $140 to $260 per section. Call (361) 314-4803 for an exact written quote.
It could be. On slide gates in Alamo Heights, a worn rack and pinion gear causes exactly those symptoms: grinding, shaking, and a jerky travel. The problem starts when the gate binds slightly, putting extra load on the drive gear until the teeth wear unevenly. It’s also common for the gate’s guide rollers to be worn or missing, which throws the rack out of alignment with the pinion. We inspect the whole drive path: gear, rack, rollers, and track alignment. Replacing a rack and pinion gear set usually runs $285 to $640 on Alamo Heights slide gates. Call (361) 314-4803 and we’ll tell you what’s worn versus what just needs alignment.
Written by Nico Alvarez, Owner at Calder Gate Repair San Antonio, part of the Relay Home Co. family since 2009.