Electric Gates were once the preserve of Hollywood, or at least those were my thoughts when I was a kid watching the US TV detective shows, back in the days when we only had three TV channels. Columbo would be working out how to get past some formidable gates and find his next clues in a Beverly Hills Mansion.
Here in the British Isles though, intruder alarms arrived like a whirling dervish in the late 80’s and proceeded to dominate security protection in those latter years of the last century. This was followed by the Chinese revolution which has subsequently thrust CCTV (once the domain of degree educated electronic experts) into the hands of everyman.
Yet now, we fast forward into the “Teenies” and the proliferation of gate installations. Like all ‘gold rushes’ caution has been thrown to the wind and every DIY’er and their dog are installing gates. Many of them badly.
The Order of the Day – Quality and Safety!
There is a skill and knowledge that goes in to installing gates that is often overlooked. Powered gates are essentially machines and like guns in the wrong hands are dangerous. The number of calls we receive week in, week out from customers who can’t get the original installer back on site is testament to this.
The DHF has long advocated the need to bring a sustained level of quality & safety to gate installations. Slowly and surely a growing number of companies have climbed on board. If you install gates regularly and plan to be sticking around for a while (we are 40+years old!) then you start to appreciate the finer nuances of gate installations, and yes, they can seriously maim and even kill.
