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Get your free estimateFAAC Welding & Fabrication: The Orlando Owner’s Guide
Most FAAC welding and fabrication work in Orlando runs $250 – $650 installed, depending on whether we’re repairing a cracked gate frame, rebuilding a hinge mount, or fabricating a custom bracket for your operator. We stock common FAAC-compatible weld plates, hinge reinforcements, and operator mounting brackets on our trucks, which means many jobs in the Orlando area are done same-day. The typical call starts the same way: the gate was working fine, then it dragged on the ground or started shaking when it opened, and now the operator is groaning against a frame that’s no longer square. Here’s the short version: if the metal is cracked, bent, or rusted through where the FAAC operator connects to the gate, welding or fabrication is usually the fix that lasts, not another adjustment.
Which FAAC Models This Applies To
This applies to the full range of FAAC swing-gate operators we service in Orlando: the 390, 400, 412, 415, 770, and S700H series, plus the 844 and C721 slide-gate operators. Welding and fabrication work usually falls into three buckets. The first is the gate frame itself, on both tube-steel and ornamental iron gates, wherever a weld has cracked from years of Orlando humidity and daily open-close cycles. The second is the operator mounting plate or post bracket, the steel piece that holds the FAAC actuator to the gate or pillar. The third is the hinge system, which carries the entire weight of the gate and is where we see the most fatigue failures.
To identify what we need before we arrive, look for the FAAC model plate on the side of the operator body. The series number is stamped there, along with the serial, but the more useful identifier for fabrication work is the physical measurement from the center of the operator’s rear mounting hole to the center of the gate bracket, along with the gate’s full leaf width. If you can snap a phone photo of the operator label and the damaged area and text it to us, that helps us bring the right steel stock the first trip.
OEM versus aftermarket matters here more than most owners expect. FAAC’s OEM mounting plates and brackets are built to the exact hole pattern and throat depth of each series, so they bolt on without shimming or grinding.
Styles & brands we work with
Signs Your FAAC Welding & Fabrication Is Failing
- The gate sags at the latch end. This is nearly always a hinge or frame issue, not an operator issue. When the metal fatigues, the leaf drops, and the FAAC actuator is then pushing against a gate that is scraping or binding on the ground.
- The gate shudders or stutters on the way open or closed. The operator is fighting resistance at a cracked weld or a hinge that has shifted out of alignment, and the motion transfer is no longer smooth.
- You can see daylight through a weld joint that used to be solid. A crack that opens and closes as the gate moves is the clearest sign the metal has failed and needs to be welded, not just painted over.
- The FAAC operator moves but the gate barely responds. The mounting bracket has torn loose or the actuator’s front clevis pin is wallowed out in the bracket hole, so the stroke is being absorbed by slop instead of moving the leaf.
- There’s fresh rust staining running from a joint. In Orlando’s damp, salty air, a pinhole in a powder coat or a failed seal lets water sit inside the tube steel. By the time you see the rust streak, the metal underneath is typically thinner than it looks.
Replacement Cost & What’s Included
For the Orlando market, here’s where the money goes. A steel patch plate or bracket-repair weld on a swing gate generally runs $250 – $400 parts and labor. A full operator mounting plate replacement, where we cut out the old steel and fabricate and weld in a new plate sized to the FAAC series you own, runs $350 – $550. A hinge post rebuild or a signifcant gate-frame straightening job, where we have to un-hang the leaf, jig it square, and reinforce the weld points, runs $450 – $650. If the gate is too far gone to safely weld, we will tell you that straight and quote a new leaf or full gate before doing anything.
Every quote in Orlando gets a written price before we start, and that’s not a range we float and then adjust upward at the door. It includes the steel, the welding consumables, the labor, and a Kingswell Guarantee on the repair for 365 days. If a weld we made fails inside that year, we come back and fix it at no charge under the 365-Day Done Right Promise.
See the difference
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AfterDIY or Call Us?
There are a couple of things you can safely check before calling, but the welding itself is not one of them. You can shoot a photo of the FAAC model label, check whether the gate is visibly sagging at the free end, and look for any crack you can see with the gate in both the open and closed positions. What you should not do is attempt to weld a cracked gate while the FAAC operator is still attached and powered, or try to weld a hinge while the gate is hanging. The gate leaf on a 14-foot steel driveway gate can weigh 300 pounds or more, and a weld that fails under load does not fail politely. This is the point where you want a shop that does this every week, has the right shielding gas and steel on hand, and stands behind the weld for a year.
If the gate is cracked, bent, or pulling away from the FAAC operator, call us at (850) 816-3017 and tell us what you are seeing. We will give you a real price range before the truck moves.
FAQs
A properly cleaned, welded, and painted repair on a FAAC-operated gate in the Orlando area typically lasts 7 to 12 years before the surrounding metal fatigues again, assuming the gate is correctly balanced and the operator stops are set properly. The weld itself, if done right with full penetration and proper surface prep, is generally stronger than the original factory welds, especially on older ornamental iron gates where the original construction was often light on weld material. The bigger variable is the powder coat or paint system you put over it, because once the weld is exposed to Orlando’s daily humidity and afternoon rain, rust begins at the repair line. We weld it, grind it smooth, and prep it so it can be primed and painted the same day.
A cracked FAAC mounting plate can sometimes be welded if the crack is a single clean line and the surrounding steel still has its original thickness, but we more often recommend replacing the plate because the FAAC operators put a twisting load on that bracket every single cycle. A weld repair on a fatigue crack, where the metal has been flexing for months, tends to re-crack at the edge of the weld unless the area is heavily reinforced. For the cost difference, which is usually $100 – $200 on most Orlando installs, we would rather cut out the old plate and weld in fresh steel sized to your FAAC series than repair a plate that is already telling you it is tired. Call (850) 816-3017 and we’ll give you a straight answer on which direction makes sense for your gate.
Most single-leaf welding and fabrication repairs on FAAC-operated gates in Orlando take 2 to 4 hours on site, including cutting out the bad section, fitting the new steel, welding, grinding, and a quick prime coat. If we are rebuilding a hinge post or straightening a gate leaf that has to be un-hung and re-hung, plan on 4 to 6 hours. We schedule a real arrival window, not a four-hour guess, and the tech arriving will have the steel and the FAAC-specific parts on the truck before they start cutting anything.
We stock the common FAAC weld plates, hinge reinforcements, and mounting brackets for the 390, 400, 412, 415, and 770 series on our Orlando trucks, along with the steel plate, tube, and angle we use for frame repairs. What we do not stock are failed parts we can fabricate in the field, which is most of the custom bracket work. If you tell us the FAAC model and send a photo of the damage before we come out, we will have what we need on the first trip rather than leaving you waiting on a parts shipment. And if we do need something our trucks don’t carry, we’ll tell you that on the phone, not after we’ve taken your gate apart.
Call Portcullis Gate Repair Orlando for FAAC Welding & Fabrication
If your FAAC operator is attached to a gate that is cracked, sagging, or pulling loose, call (850) 816-3017. We’re Dean Prescott’s crew at Portcullis Gate Repair Orlando, an independent Kingswell company serving the Orlando area since 2008, and we’ve seen every flavor of gate-metal fatigue this climate can produce. We also stock parts and service for LiftMaster, Mighty Mule, and Ghost Controls operators if you have a mixed setup on the property. Tell us what the gate is doing, or not doing, and we’ll give you a real number before we touch a thing. The price is in writing before any work starts, and the repair is guaranteed for a full year.
Written by Dean Prescott, Owner, Portcullis Gate Repair Orlando at Portcullis Gate Repair Orlando, serving Orlando and nearby areas.