But like a modern locked car, gate automation is controlled by an electronic signal. The motors are tough and powerful enough to push large, heavy gates, sometimes with strong winds blowing on them. This makes it impossible for anyone to simply push one open. So, automatic gates keep what’s on your property safer than the alternatives.

Why Security Is Not An Issue With An Automatic Gate

There are a few things you can keep secure with an automatic gate. These include your house and property, your possessions and your family and pets.  Electric gates are designed to close automatically once you’ve passed through them. This means that anyone and anything inside the gates once they are closed is protected. 

No-one can wander up your drive without you knowing. Conversely, your children can’t wander out into the street.  No-one can drive a car up your drive unless you’ve opened your gate to let them in. And if you have a close boarded gate with no gaps in it, the only view of your property is either over or under the gate.

Your cars are safe on your drive behind closed electric gates. You can leave garden furniture out when you’re away. And you can leave garden maintenance equipment like lawnmowers out rather than locking them away every time you’re not in your garden.

The opportunist thief may wonder what’s behind your electric gate, but they want easy access and a quick way out. While it may be possible to get over, sometimes under or around an automatic gate, thieves usually don’t bother.  Access may not be a huge problem, but you can’t steal a car and drive it away while the gate automation remains locked closed. In most cases, a thief will see a locked automatic gate as an additional hurdle to be jumped when there are easier pickings next door or down the road.

Ways To Improve Your Gate's Security

While gate automation makes your home more secure, there are some areas that can be looked at to further control access and add even more security.

Tailgating

Any single swing gate or sliding gate is often large, so they don’t move very quickly. They can be set up to close behind vehicles as they drive through, but this needs additional components such as loop cables or extra photocells. The alternative is a simple delay of a few seconds before an open electric gate starts to close again.

If an electric gate is slow to open and close and stays open for up to half a minute or more, thieves have the opportunity to closely follow authorised visitors or the homeowners onto the property. This opportunity for tailgating can be reduced by using faster motors to reduce the time it takes the gate to open and close. You can also reduce the time swing or sliding gates stay open with loop cables that start to close the gate as soon as the authorised vehicle has passed through.

Passenger in a visitor’s car

If a visitor calls you up on your intercom asking to be let in, how do you know they don’t have someone else with them who may not be welcome? You could use a video intercom and maybe even CCTV to help see other passengers. That way, no-one can hide inside genuine visitors' cars unless they’re on the floor or in the boot!

Walls and fences

Automatic swing or sliding gates are great at covering the entrance to your drive when you need to control access onto your property. But if you don’t have a good perimeter fence, wall or hedge around your whole property, you’re leaving holes for undesirables to get through.

The space under a gate

Automatic swing gates usually open onto the property rather than out into public spaces for safety reasons. But if your driveway rises, one of the only ways to stop swing gates from grounding as they open is to have them mounted high off the ground when closed. Unfortunately, this leaves a nice big gap under them for anyone to crawl through.

A sliding gate eliminates this issue as it rolls on wheels along a track installed across your driveway entrance. As a result, sliding gates are only a few cm off the ground.

Climbing over a gate

Ladders, cars, vans, and trees can all be used for a malcontent to use to climb over your electric gates or even fences and walls around your property. 

Lights triggered by motion detectors, CCTV, signs and other deterrents all encourage the villain to try elsewhere.

Locks

Even trying to force a swing gate installation from the middle where leverage multiplies the force applied at the hinge and the gate motor mountings, manually opening gate automation is not possible. 

However, with a vehicle, it may be possible to ram automatic gates open depending on the size of the gate and the construction of the gate openers. The easiest way to prevent this is with a strong lock holding swing gates together. A magnetic lock provides the greatest locking force. Unfortunately, with enough force, a vehicle may still break gate opener mechanisms or hinges.

Bollards

Probably the ultimate security companion to automatic driveway gates are manual or automatic rising bollards. These can be installed inside or outside your gates and will stop most attempts at ramming electric gates open.

Why You Should Upgrade To An Automatic Gate

There are many ways that automatic gates add security to your home and many other reasons why electric gates are well worth considering. These include the following.

Adding value to your home

The same house design as yours on the same street as yours is probably worth slightly less than yours if you have a bigger garden or a conservatory or electric gates. 

Keeping you dry in the rain and warm when it’s cold

Automated gates open at the touch of a button from a remote control transmitter you keep with you, or from the house via an intercom. This means that you never have to get out of your car in the rain to open your gates. You just press a button in the comfort of your car or home and your electric gate opens automatically.

Ensuring your gates are shut when you want them closed

Gate automation is often purchased because homeowners see closed auto gates in their neighbourhood and fall in love with the idea of extra security. But if they don’t want to spend the money for automated gates, a manual gate is often the next best choice.

Unfortunately, that means you have to get out of your car to open it before you can drive through, stop and then do it all again to close the gate behind you. If visitors arrive, they just open the gates and drive or walk through. After a few weeks of opening and closing your manual gate by hand, the effort gets boring, and it's left open. Finally, after a few months like this, you go on holiday and try and push the gate closed. But the hinges have seized, and your gate is stuck open.

Compared to manual gates, electric gate automation is more expensive to buy and install, the systems need power to run them, and they should be maintained to ensure they run well. But, at the touch of a button automated gates will shut when you want them to and open when you want. If you have a GSM intercom access control system, you can even see who’s at your gates and let them in or keep them out from anywhere in the world using just your smartphone (as long as you have an internet connection).

Automatic gates make a statement to your neighbours, deter spontaneous criminal acts and they help keep your family and your property secure.