Five bar gates or “barred gates” are fundamentally a gate that has bars running horizontally between two gate styles.They come in all types of designs and sizes. Ideal for spanning a driveway up to twenty-four feet wide. A varied combination of rails can be used from round steel bar to round machined hardwood bars. There can be any quantity from the traditional five bars up to eight or ten bars.You have to consider the surrounding location, the function and the over all requirement of your gates. If there are animals that need to be kept in or out then pales on the bottom may be required just to add that animal proofing to area of the gate that an animal may try to get through. Or you may want to bunch the rails up tightly at the bottom of the gate then spread them towards to top. This would give a similar stock proofing as the pales, but with a different design aspect. The bottom rail on five bar gates has to be the same thickness as the top rail. This is often not the case in traditional gate making. The need for a solid thick bottom rail is two fold! The first reason is to get the gate behaving equally. I shall explain, the top and bottom rail will expand and contract at different rates along the length of the gate it self. So if there is a different section size between these two rails it encourages gates to twist at the centre. You must have seen this with many barred styles. Having the two rails the same thick solid section will minimise this happening. The second reason is when the gates are automated the power is often put thought the bottom of the gate especially with below ground operators. Having a larger thick bottom rail say ex five by three inches will greatly improve these two areas.
When hanging your five bars just remember to use good size oak posts and quality adjustable hinges. Take time to look at our other pages on this site to read about these particular areas.
