Ashley Manor Gate

For this job I was contacted by a man named Steve on a referal. Steve owns a rental property that had a broken 6' wide gate access through the privacy fence into the side yard.  The gate was sagging, had a broken frame and one of the hinges had come completely dislodged from the post it was mounted to making it utterly and almost completely unusable.  This was a simple enough job requiring only raw materials of lumber
concrete and fasteners as well as a strong back and the ability to construct a sturdy frame that would be guaranteed not to sag or break from any sort of normal useage for many, many years to come. 
 After removing the gate and adjacent fence pannel section I unearthed the old 4"x4" post and set a new 4"x6" pressure treated post which I anchored in a 3' deep hole with 180 lbs. of concrete around its base.  This new post was sure to give the gate the support it needed.  Next I constructed a new frame out of 2"x4" pressure treated studs.  Each corner was cut at a 45 degree angle and fastened with 3" stainless steel screws from both directions.  Cross members were cut and placed from corner to corner also fastened with screws and every point in which 2 boards met was capped with a galvanized steel plate screwed in at multiple points with 1.5" coated decking screws that will also resist rust and corrosion.  New hinges were installed and the gate frame was mounted and leveled to ensure smooth operation.  The salvaged facing boards were then re-attached and latching hardware was re-installed.  See the before and after photos below to see the difference in the structural integrity of this gate.

Notice the break in the top board and the fact that the cross member support piece has become dislodged.  I suspect that whoever built this gate merely cut down a whole fence section to the 6' width of the opening and mistakenly believed that slapping a few cross members of the 1x3 variety accross the 2x2 fence boards would be sufficient to keep it all together. 

If you click on the picture and look at the enlarged photo you can see that the bottom hinge is completely dismounted from the post.  Again you can see just how little support the gate had from flimsy cross members that were just barely nailed to the fence slats.

This is the finished product.. definately built to last.