Powered gates: Ensuring Gates are Safe

 

This page is designed to help you, the end user understand what is involved in the safety of automated gates you are looking or have installed at the front of your property.

 

The number of fatalities and serious injuries caused as a direct result of automated gates being installed either because of the lack of understanding by the automated gates installer or to reduce cost can have serious consequences.

 

By following this link you can get help directly from the HSE website, that will give you understanding in what is involved in delivering safety by design and construction, maintaining for safety and the risk, compliance and training necessary to ensure you get a automated gate that is safe!! also for the use of standard for design, assessment and testing. HSE guidelines for the safety of your gates

 

When putting the safety of your loved ones and your customers in the hands of strangers, whether registered with Gate Safe or DHF they should be able to explain the full compliance of safety in relation to your system.

 

Before engaging the services of any automated gate company, it is advisable for your safety, that you should ask for a written outline of the risk assessment that has been carried out and all of the safety that will be included in your installation.

 

If they're not prepared to provide this then please look for an alternative company!!

 

I understand that sometimes playing down safety necessities for your gate may look appealing from a cost perspective but the consequences can be catastrophic in some cases.

 

But you should never compromise on the fatality risk or crushing!!

 

Compromising for the purpose of cosmetics or cost should only be limited or considered (but never including schools under any circumstances and neither commercial premises) when addressing this "shearing area". unless the slope on the drive creates a diminishing gap when the gate is closing, or that the gate opens up against a solid object i.e. a wall, other than these factors we here at HMS Automated Gates will consider compromising the installation by not attaching safety edges to the bottom of the inside and outside of each leaf, because this results in 4 additional safety ages at an approximate cost to the customer of between £600 and £800 +vat. however at the direction of the customer who are prepared to cover the additional cost we will of course install the four additional safety ages at the bottom of the gates.

 

This in our experience becomes a considerable issue to the customer when we are called out to an existing gate with automation and who are just only looking for a repair, wherein, using the existing image below, to bring this gate up to the Machinery Directive 2008 compliance, we would need to attach to this gate  2 safety edges at the hinge, 4 in total to the bottom of the gates and 1 to the centre of the gates (where both leafs come together) to-date there have been a recorded 4 deaths to individuals for not having a centre safety edge ( below image of safety edges) a total of 7 safety edges would be needed for this gate at a costof beween £1050 and £1400+vat and this is before any repair has been looked at, and this can be a shock to the system when you've had the gate in operation for the last 10 to 15 years or more and in some cases just weeks or months.

 

To support the reason why I would consider compromising on the safety edages at the bottom of Gates within the 'shearing area', is because I have only once been made aware by DHF that there has ever being one issue with a woman getting a foot caught under the gate but suffered no long-term issues.

 

The below images will help you understand the visible risk involved with automated gates:

 

 

it is our understanding from 2010 todate there has been 4 fatalities 2, young children and 2 elderly ladies as a result of the centre of pair gates coming together with no force limitation or safety edges being installed.

 

It has come to our attention, this can also be verified by Gate Safe that a number of installers are only relying on force limitation and not installing safety eages at closing edge of pair gates or sliding gates. force testing alone does not make the gates fully compliant. there must never be a single point of failure that leads to a catastrophic event.

 

The above pair gates, under the guidelines of the Machinery Directive 2008 requires a total of 7 safety edges at an approximate cos,t including a relay in the control panel which sometimes is necessary, a total of £1,500+vat. cost is the main reason why installers will omit safety to secure work.

 

However, here at HMS we will only compromise on the 4 safety edges at the bottom edge of gates on domestic properties, but, not on drives with a steep incline where there is a diminishing gap as the gate closes, 2 safely edges will be attached to the underside of each leaf.

 

However, when we do new installs we design out the need for safety edges at the hinge by removing the diminishing gap, and therefore only one safety edge is needed down the centre of the gates where there is still a diminishing gap as the gate closes.

 

Some installers will tell you, you don't need a safety edge because of force limitation, the force limitation will detect a body and back off in some cases, but will not detect fingers that can be easily trapped when the gates close, the forced limitation needs to turnoff at about 40mm because when the gates meet, if the force limitation is still active the gates will automatically move away from each other (reopen).