Electronic Access

The Ups and Downs of Electronic Access with Wood Gates

THE PRIMARY CONCERN

Prowell Woodworks does not warranty any gate for eventual repairs that are the result of a security or electronic access system that requires less than 3/8″ swing clearance.

If you’re considering a system that utilizes a standard residential lockset with a standard cylinder bolt, the swing clearance (the gap between the gate and the post) will be similar to that of the front residential entry door. A nickel’s thickness, more or less. But unlike a front residential door which is insulated on one side and further protected by jambs and headers and a roofline, the gates are fully exposed to the elements on 360 degrees to a combination of rain, sleet, snow, sunlight, heat, dew and the relative humidity of the air itself. All of this absorbed and released from the wood as a living environment, resulting in a gate width that changes and will continue to change, or breath, for the 50 years or so it adorns your property.

If you are in, say, South Carolina or Hawaii or the Caribbean, with excessive humidity and heat interspersed with afternoon rains, the gates will breath more heavily. Therefore the risks of swelling beyond a narrow ⅛” swing gap to bounce off the posts is much higher. If you are in San Francisco, with its even temperate climate, the risks are reduced simply because the gate is not reacting to excessive shifts in weather.

When a gate has only ⅛” clearance, it runs the risk of expanding to wedge against its post or jamb and require yanking and shoving to open. The repeated yanking and shoving over the course of weeks or months is not good for the joinery. The gate in many cases will continue to expand to where it simply bounces off the jamb or post. This results in the potential damage due to the wind catching it and slamming it repeatedly to bounce off the jamb or post for the duration of the wet season, which again is not good for the joinery.

The percentage of those gates with ⅛” clearance resulting in the above scenario is about 20%, which is far too high a risk if you are in the gate business. We are not willing to replace 20% of all gates we build simply to accommodate a request for ‘strike-plate actuated’ electronic access or the aesthetic preference of a standard residential lockset.

If you prefer to move forward, we will build your gate, but we will not be liable for damage due to the above issues. In other words, we will repair or replace your gate, but not for free. This is a contingent appearing several places on the web site, such as the Payment Page, as well as the statement requiring an approval sign-off.

A thorough explanation becomes complicated, and for those of you who are interested, the remainder of this page will address the issue on a more technical level.

You’ll notice that the latch bolt below has a beveled edge. This interacts with the strike plate and as the door closes, the beveled edge of the bolt withdraws into the lock cylinder with a spring action. Once the bevel bolt reaches the center of the strike plate (the hole in the center of the plate), the spring releases and the bolt is fully engaged into the center of the strike plate. Because the bevel is on only one side of the bolt, it cannot be pushed open without turning the lock handle that withdraws the beveled latch bolt back into the lock cylinder in the door. To open the door, you must turn the lock handle.

The latch bolt is a standard diameter, simply because all doors are standard thicknesses from 1-3/8″ thick for interior doors to 1-3/4″ thick for entry doors. The diameter of the latch bolt dictates the angle of the bevel, which in turn dictates the actual length of the bevel that comes into contact with the strike plate. By the nature of this, virtually all of your interior and residential entry doors are relegated to a gap of approximately a nickel’s thickness. You might now go have a look at all the doors in your house to verify this. Bearing in mind that these doors are not gates. The residential entry door is insulated on one side and protected by a jamb and header, as well as a roofline. The interior doors are 100% insulated from the elements.

ELECTRONIC DEAD BOLTS

–-Available through Prowell Woodworks

Because the latch bolt on all dead bolts extends 1″, the primary criteria of 3/8″ swing clearance is met.

MAGNETIC LOCKS

— NOT available through Prowell Woodworks

No moving parts to wear out or break. No risk of swelling gates.

The series of magnetic locks are available from several manufacturers. There are several models designed for outdoor gates with the principle of allowing the gate to breath dimensionally–to expand and contract with the seasons while maintaining the magnetic hold. Magnetic locks have no moving parts to wear out or break and are virtually indestructible. 1200 Lb locks are typically used for vehicular gate applications while the 600 Lb lock is used for pedestrian gate applications. The 1200 Lb locks are available in kit form which makes installation quick and easy. The kits include pre-drilled and tapped lock and armature mounting brackets that can be welded to the gate. The magnetic lock and armature are then bolted to the brackets with the supplied hardware.

The Magna Box mounted to the post for In-Swing Gates.

Below, an example of where the homeowners had an alternate bracket fabricated. Shown on a double gate, with the magnetic box recessed into the fixed gate. 
Photographed from the property side with the gate on the right being the fixed gate and the gate on the left being the operable, opening in toward the property.

The Magna Box shown mortised flush into an over sized jamb, and surface-mounted onto the outer face of the post, required the arm bracket mounted to the gate.

THE ‘STRIKEPLATE ACCUATED” ELECTRIC SECURITY ACCESS:

NOT available through Prowell Woodworks

The Accuated Strike assembly is a solution we see frequenty in the specs for large firms who’ve called out prowell for the gates. It’s an expensive, complex, semi-reliable arrangement we do not offer. But that is listed here, with approximate pricing, for those willing to hire an Electronic Access professional to manage the installation.
The system involves the following: 1) A mortise lockset/deadbolt with lever handles; 2) An electric strikeplate; 3) and a keypad actuator. 4) Gate thickness of 2-1/4″

How it Works:

1. When mounted to the post or jamb, the Actuated Strike is mortised in flush and wired down the length of the post or jamb to a junction box connecting it to the power source and most commonly, a keypad release. The lockset used on the gate is a standard residential mortise style lockset, with the 3/4″ extended beveled spring-load cylinder that is set to a locked position. Upon activating the release by entering the proper code or being buzzed in from the house, the strike plate bar mounted to the post is released and the beveled cylinder can be pushed through the strike as the gate swings open.

* We do not currently offer this option, and present it here as a workable solution you, the homeowner, such that you can present it to your contractor or automation contractor. The prices are culled from the manufacturer’s retail listed pricing. We would prefer you follow this research rather than resort to an option that results in the gate you’re purchasing from us being damaged due to a system designed for residential access and not gate access. Remember: The one solid and irrefutable criteria to electric security access for a gate is that the gate has 3/8″ swing clearance.

THE ‘SIMPLEX CYLINDER BOLT AND THE HES 5200 ELECTRIC STRIKE:

NOT available through Prowell Woodworks

The principles of a flush-joined wood gate.

Wood comes to us from the forests of British Columbia, spec’d for a minimum number of growth rings that insures the harvest is fully matured. We cannot buy wood from the American northwest simply because it is harvested far too early. From BC, the logs are shipped to the mill of our choice in Washington state, and from the mill they are shipped to our shop in northern California as dimensioned lumber that is clear, vertical-grained, and kiln-dried to about 7% moisture. All three regions–BC, Washington, and N. California–share more or less a similar climate. Lots of rain, temperate humidity, and mild summers.

Once it leaves the shop, as an assembled product, and embarks on what’s often a cross-country transit to a climate wholly different from its genetic DNA over the past several millennium, it experiences for the first time, once installed, the full 360-degree exposure to a climate of severe winters, or humid summers where the air is thick as Jello.

The result, for several weeks, is the wood breathing heavily. The way someone from San Francisco might do if visiting Mississippi in August. The wood acclimates and adjusts, gasping and panting in a sequence of expansion and contraction that goes on for several weeks until eventually stabilizing and settling into a pattern of minimal breathing that will last for the next several decades.

It’s those first several weeks that present a problem for all those preferring an electronic access for their gates.

**
Wood breathes perpendicular to the grain. As it takes on rain or dew or humidity, it swells. As it experiences dry heat, it shrinks. The two vertical frame pieces of the gate are called Stiles. These breath horizontally. So if they arrive at 5-1/4″ width, they will, depending on the regional climate, potentially expand to 5-3/4″ width. But because they arrive at only 7% moisture, they will seldom contract, or shrink, more than 1/4″.

Why is kiln-dried 7% moisture preferred? If we worked with green wet wood that had been logged the week before and was still wet with the plasma of living cells, our tight joints would open up as the wood dried and shrank the way firewood must dry before being burned. For assemblies relying on woodworking joinery instead of fasteners, it is essential that the joints are cut and fashioned with a relative moisture between 7-9%. (less than this and the cell structure of the wood fiber itself breaks down, hence why you see very little in the way of exposed wood assemblies in places like Phoenix or Las Vegas).

**
Now that we understand the properties of the wood, let’s consider the variables of where it goes once leaving the shop in northern California. If the gate is delivered to somewhere within the San Francisco Bay Area, there will be minimal acclimation, as the entire Bay Area shares a similar temperate climate. If a gate is shipped to Memphis, or basically anywhere with seasons and relative humidity, it takes on the moisture of that humidity and swells, or expands to a larger width (Remember, the Stiles are what swell and they swell horizontally). If we finish a gate in, say, January, and ship it east, the dimensional change is minimal simply because cold and snow tend to contract the wood. If we build a gate in July and ship it east into the high humidity of summer climate, the gate swells. The more heat and humidity at the end destination, the more initial swelling. And because just about everywhere east of the Pacific coastal range experiences normal winters and summers with rain and humidity, this phenomenon is exempt only within those areas along the Pacific coast. A narrow corridor where the weather is unlike anywhere else in the country. (A good reason why it is also an area of high housing costs).

**
The properties of a typical electronic locking system only engage with a swing clearance (the gap between the gate and the post) of 1/4″ or less. Imagine your front door, or any door within your house. Look at the gap between the edge of the door on the lock side, and the jamb and you will see the approximate thickness of a nickel. That’s because the same type of lockset is most often used on gates with electronic releases. And because the nature of the cylinder set within the edge of the gate, or door, has a spring-loaded beveled edge that engages the strike plate, the 1/4″ gap cannot be more or the bevel will simply not engage at all. If that cylinder were longer, and the gate swelled, it would be the shaft of the cylinder itself, and not the bevel, that bounces off the strike plate. So the nature of standard lock-sets do not work, by physical design, with a swing gap of anything more than 1/4″.

But 1/4″ is too little to accommodate the acclimating expansion of our gates. The gates, upon arriving and being installed and absorbing the changes in varying climate regions once fully exposed, naturally begin to swell once they experience their first season with humidity. (So if the gate is installed between late October and early March, everything will be fine until the heat and summer rains and daily humidity of the warmer season arrives).

The gate swells and quickly it swells beyond the 1/4″ gap of your electronic lockset and it continues to swell until it becomes wedged tight against your gate post. The electronic lock is instantly disabled and at this juncture the gate must be shoved and pushed and yanked simply to gain access. A horrible set of parameters for the gate. And because the gate will not latch or close, it often is left to slam and bang against the post with each thrust of wind. And eventually something gives. First your patience followed by a temper tantrum followed by a string of cursing expletives directed toward Prowell Woodworks. Followed by the gate finally giving in to the abuse and manhandling and our homeowners calling demanding a new replacement gate.

The above scenario occurs about 20% of the time with any gate shipped anywhere with a swing clearance of anything less than the preferred 3/8″ swing gap.

So you will see others with electronic access system that seem to work just fine. Perhaps even your neighbor’s gate. But if you are in the gate building business, a 20% recall rate is about 19.999% higher than what is acceptable.

Therefore, any gate subsequently utilizing a standard door lock or electronic access loses it’s warranty the moment it leaves our shop. We will not replace such a gate. There is no way to hide the evidence of such a lockset. You gambled, and the price for those whose imperatives are electronic security, the next option is wrought iron, preceded by a round of cursing expletives directed toward Prowell Woodworks.