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Glossary

Cantilever gate

A sliding gate with no track on the ground. It hangs from rollers on a post and balances on a tail. Good for a clean, clear driveway.

A cantilever gate is a sliding gate that does not touch the ground. Instead of a track and bottom wheels, it hangs from two pairs of rollers fixed to the post. A tail past the post balances the gate's weight, so it slides freely with nothing on the ground to jam it.

Cantilever gates win wherever the driveway needs to stay clear: low-clearance vehicles, drainage runs across the path, leaf litter or sand that would jam a ground rail, or just the cleaner aesthetic of no track in the concrete.

The trade-off is steel cost. A cantilever gate uses roughly 30% more material than a tracked sliding gate the same width because of the counterweight tail. The cantilever rail also needs to be a heavier section than a typical bottom rail.

Residential cantilevers usually run 3 to 6 m of clear opening. Commercial cantilevers go to 12 m and beyond, but that's specialised hardware territory.

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