Cantilever vs Tracked Sliding Gates on the Gold Coast

Once you have decided a sliding gate suits your driveway, there is a second decision most people do not know they have to make. A sliding gate can either roll along a track set into the driveway, or hang off rollers mounted beside the opening so that nothing touches the ground across the entrance at all. The first is a tracked sliding gate. The second is a cantilever gate. Both can be automated with the same kind of motor, and from the street they can look almost identical, but they behave very differently on a Gold Coast block.

How a tracked sliding gate works

A tracked gate sits on two or more V-groove wheels that run along a steel track fixed into the concrete across the full width of the opening and along the run-back beside it. The gate is guided at the top by rollers on a post so it stays upright. The motor sits on a pad next to the opening and drives a toothed rack on the bottom rail of the gate.

This is the most common and usually the cheaper way to build a sliding gate. The gate only needs to be as long as the opening plus a little overlap, and the track carries all the weight, so the frame can be relatively light. The catch is the track itself. It has to be straight, level and clear, because every grain of sand, leaf, pebble or bit of mulch that lands on it is something the wheels have to climb over.

How a cantilever gate works

A cantilever gate has no ground track across the driveway. Instead, the gate is built with an extra section on its tail end, a counterweight of sorts, and it rides on a pair of heavy roller carriages bolted to footings beside the opening. The gate is supported from one side only and hangs across the entrance in mid-air, landing in a catch on the far post when it closes.

Because it never touches the driveway, a cantilever gate does not care what is on the ground in the opening. It also does not care much about the shape of the ground, which is where it earns its money on some Gold Coast sites. The trade-off is that the gate has to be longer and stiffer than a tracked gate of the same opening, the carriages and footings have to be engineered for the load, and the whole thing costs more to build and install.

Sloping and uneven driveways

A tracked gate needs a track that is dead level, or very close to it, along its whole length. On a flat estate block in Robina or Helensvale that is easy. On a driveway that falls toward the street, or crosses from one level to another, it is not. You can sometimes set the track level and let the driveway meet it, but that can leave a lip across the entrance that you drive over every day.

A cantilever gate only needs its footings and carriages to be level. The driveway under the gate can rise, fall or crown, as long as there is ground clearance under the bottom rail through the full opening. That makes cantilever the more natural choice on the hilly blocks around Tamborine and the hinterland, and on any entrance where the concrete has a crossfall.

Sand, salt and debris near the coast

This is the reason cantilever gates are so common along the coastal strip. Wind-blown sand is the enemy of a tracked gate. It packs into the groove of the track, grinds the wheel bearings and makes the gate drag. The motor then works harder on every cycle, and its safety system may read the extra resistance as an obstruction and stop or reverse the gate. Leaf litter, gravel carried in on tyres and mulch washed across the driveway in a summer storm do the same thing further inland.

A tracked gate near the beach can work perfectly well, but it needs the track swept regularly and the wheels checked, and it will reward you for keeping garden beds and loose surfaces away from the run-back. A cantilever gate simply has less to go wrong at ground level. Its rollers still live in salt air and still need attention, as our post Salt Air and Your Gate explains, but they sit up off the ground where sand does not collect.

Space beside the opening

Every sliding gate needs a clear run alongside the fence roughly equal to the width of the opening, so the gate has somewhere to go. A cantilever gate needs more than that, because the counterweight tail adds length. As a rough guide, allow noticeably more run-back for a cantilever gate than for a tracked gate on the same opening, and the exact figure depends on the gate design, its weight and the carriages used.

On a tight frontage that extra length can decide the matter. If the run-back is blocked by a retaining wall, a letterbox or a neighbour's boundary, a tracked gate may fit where a cantilever will not. We measure this on the site visit before anything is quoted.

Maintenance compared

A tracked gate asks for little but often. Keep the track clear, check that the wheels spin freely and are not flat-spotted, and have the track inspected for lifting or cracking concrete. A cantilever gate asks for less day to day but more care at service time. The carriage rollers carry the full weight of the gate, so their bearings and mounting bolts need checking and the gate alignment needs to be confirmed so it still lands squarely in its catch. Our guide to Automatic Gate Maintenance on the Gold Coast covers the full service routine for both.

Which one should you choose?

Choose a tracked gate when the driveway is flat, the budget matters, space beside the opening is limited, and the site is not constantly dusted with sand or leaves. Choose a cantilever gate when the driveway slopes or crossfalls, when you are close to the beach or have heavy leaf drop, or when you would rather not have a track across the entrance at all.

If you are weighing it up, our Automatic Sliding Gate Installation page explains how we size the motor to the gate, and a site visit will settle the rest. Measure your opening and the clear run beside it, take a photo of the driveway from the street, and we can tell you which type suits the block.