Cantilever Gate guides, calculator & reference

In Ireland, a manual steel cantilever sliding gate costs €2,800 to €4,200 supplied and fitted, while a residential electric steel cantilever gate costs €3,800 to €6,800. An electric powder-coated aluminium cantilever gate costs €4,800 to €8,500, and wide commercial cantilever gates (5m to 9m opening) cost €5,500 to €12,000. Pouring a new reinforced concrete counterbalance pad behind the pier adds €600 to €2,000.

A cantilever sliding gate has no wheels touching the driveway surface and no steel rail crossing the entrance. Instead, two heavy-duty 8-wheel roller carriages are bolted to a concrete pad behind one pier, and an enclosed steel or aluminium monorail channel welded to the bottom of the gate slides over those fixed rollers. A 33% to 40% counterbalance tail behind the pier balances the weight of the gate leaf as it cantilevers out across the opening.

Because the gate frame includes the counterbalance tail that stays spanned between the two roller carriages when the gate is closed, total gate length — and the straight run-back space needed behind one pier — is roughly 1.35 to 1.4 times the clear entrance width. For example, a 3.6m entrance needs about 4.9m of clear run-back; a 4.0m entrance needs about 5.4m.

Choose a cantilever gate whenever your driveway is surfaced in loose gravel, stone chippings or tar-and-chip (which jam a ground V-rail), where the entrance has a drainage crown or uneven cross-fall, where you already have finished cobblelock or resin that you do not want to saw-cut across the opening, or on commercial yards where heavy lorries would crush a surface rail.