FAAC Welding & Fabrication Nationwide | Gatewood Fence & Gate

FAAC Welding & Fabrication: The Encino Owner’s Guide

We stock and install FAAC-compatible welding and fabrication parts throughout Encino, with most hinge, bracket, and gate frame repairs running between $180 and $650 installed, same day in most cases. The phone call we get most often starts the same way: a gate that used to swing smooth now drags on the driveway, or a weld point that let go with a crack the owner heard from inside the house. By the time you’re reading this, you’ve probably already put a shoulder into the gate and felt something give that shouldn’t.

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Here’s what matters: a failed weld on a FAAC gate rarely happens in isolation. The weld is usually the last thing to let go after a hinge wore, a post shifted, or an operator started pushing harder than it should. That’s what we look for first.

Which FAAC Models This Applies To

We work on the full range of FAAC swing and slide gate systems you’ll find around Encino: the 400 and 412 operator series, the 750 and 770 hydraulic units, the C720 and C721 slide operators, and the S700H and S800H swing arms that sit on a lot of driveways off Hayvenhurst and White Oak. The welding and fabrication side of a FAAC install lives in the hinge assemblies, the gate frame and pickets, the post brackets, and the gate-to-operator mounting plates.

Here’s a compatibility gotcha most owners learn the hard way: the mounting plate bolt pattern on a FAAC 750 is not the same as the pattern on a 770, even though the operators look nearly identical at a glance. Drilling new holes into a cast plate to “make it fit” weakens it and the next crack tends to travel into the gate frame itself. When we fabricate a replacement bracket, we match it to the exact operator model and the gate’s weight, not just what’s close enough.

For FAAC parts, we use OEM hardware when the part is still in production and priced fairly. When an OEM bracket for an older C720 is backordered six weeks or priced like it’s made of silver, we fabricate an equivalent from the same gauge steel, same dimensions, and same mounting geometry, and we’ll tell you which one we’re doing and why before we touch a tool. We’re an independent shop, not affiliated with FAAC, which means we answer to you, not to a brand’s parts catalog.

Signs Your FAAC Welding & Fabrication Is Failing

• A gate that sags toward the latch side even after hinge adjustments. This means the hinge point itself has worn or the weld holding the hinge to the post or frame has started to crack. Adjusting the hinge won’t fix a broken weld, and the gate will keep dropping until the metal separates.
• Visible rust bleeding from the bottom rail or hinge area. Rust is the early warning in Encino’s dry heat plus our morning marine layer off the hills. Once you see the orange line, the inside of the tube is already losing wall thickness. A rusted-through bottom rail can fail while someone is walking the gate closed.
• A new creak or grind that changes as the gate moves. A weld crack will open and close under load, and you can hear it. It sounds different from dry rollers. It’s a sharper, metallic tick that repeats at the same point in the travel.
• The gate hangs lower on one end and scrapes a groove into the driveway. The gate frame itself may have racked because the operator has been pulling against a worn hinge. That drag mark is a clue about which corner is failing first.
• The operator mounting plate has shifted or developed play. If you can move the operator by hand even an eighth of an inch, the anchors or the plate welds are loosening. A loose plate changes the entire travel geometry and puts the operator’s internals under a load FAAC never rated them for.

I’ll add one more that shows up on our calls in Encino more than anywhere else: sprinkler overspray. The spray that hits the same bottom corner of the gate every other morning for ten years will rust out a perfectly good gate frame from the inside. We’ve replaced entire hinges that looked fine on the outside and came off in two pieces.

Replacement Cost & What’s Included

For Encino, the job usually falls into one of three ranges. A single hinge or bracket repair runs $180 to $300 installed. A gate frame repair, crack re-welding, and re-hanging runs $300 to $500. A full fabrication job, like a new bottom rail, a rebuilt gate portion, or a custom mounting plate for an older FAAC, runs $450 to $650. The range comes down to how much of the old metal is salvageable and whether the job is a repair or a rebuild.

The price you’re quoted is the price you pay. We quote the job after putting hands on the gate, and the number is agreed before any work starts. If we find something else once we’re in there, we don’t invoice the surprise, we bring it to you first. Every welding and fabrication job we do carries our 90-Day Done Right Promise in writing, and we don’t hide the terms behind fine print. If the weld or the part doesn’t hold, one call brings us back.

DIY or Call Us?

There are things an owner can safely check without opening a toolbox: look for rust trails, check that the gate is level when closed, listen for that repeating tick, and watch the operator plate while the gate cycles. That’s the kind of look-see that helps you describe the problem accurately over the phone.

What we don’t recommend is for you to weld on a gate that carries several hundred pounds and an operator bolted to it. Gate frames are structural, and a weld that looks solid on the surface but has poor penetration will fail under the repetitive torque a FAAC operator produces every single cycle. Also, if the failed part is close to the operator’s electrical enclosure or the control board gets involved, you’re one wrong move from a shorted board, which costs more than the original repair would have.

If you’re not sure what you’re looking at, call us at (350) 247-4763 and describe the symptom. Hal has been doing this in the San Fernando Valley since 2001, and he’s usually able to tell you over the phone whether it’s a quick hinge job or a full frame repair. The estimate is free.

FAQs

Get it Fixed Before the Gate Finds the Ground

A gate with a failing weld doesn’t schedule its own collapse. It goes on a Tuesday afternoon when the kids are walking home or a Saturday morning when you’ve got a truck full of lumber waiting. We answer the phone around the clock, which means a real person picks up, not a voicemail, not a recording, and not a call center. If you’re inside the county, there’s no trip charge. If you’ve got another written estimate, bring it, and we’ll give you the second opinion free. Seniors and veterans get 10% off, always, no haggling required.

Call us at (350) 247-4763 for a free estimate on your FAAC gate repair. We’ll give you a number upfront that doesn’t shift at the door.

Written by Hal Gatewood, Owner, Gatewood Fence & Gate at Gatewood Fence & Gate, serving Encino and nearby areas.