Electric fence

I must say with the large amount of repairs that come in, a larger degree of them are jobs on electric gates carried out as maintainence or service.

Probably one of the worst recently was a gate motor that had been “serviced” only 3 months prior and now the gate was not working at all. Unsuspecting, the owners expected a relatively minor fault.

The discovery, the gear box had not been filled to the correct level of oil and in fact, although i could not swear to it (without testing) it really looked as though the remaining oil that was in the unit was VERY old, certainly not 3 months. The actual dismal result, a totally trashed gearbox with repairs costs of around R1400. Ouch!! Especially when you had it serviced 3 months ago to hopefully eradicate issues like this.

Having seen so many of these types of disasters, I have actually come to the opinion “If it works, LEAVE IT!” That gear box fault was likely to be brought on by moving the unit, spilling some oil and then neglecting to re-fill. If the motor had remained untouched, it would be probably be going another 5 years without problems!

I am sure than many would have a different opinion (many enjoy charging the maintenance fee) however in many cases, lack of maintenance would have actually saved the customer money! The quality of service is just not what it should be really i guess??

When there is a noticable fault, leaking oil, smoke is a pretty good one etc, then absolutely, waste no time in getting out your team of choice to repair and attend to the faulty gate motor – until then, you might be better of waiting and just leaving it??

I would urge clients that have motors under abnormal stress/use or several years in use to get the motor and oil checked out if you have a wet gear box type gate motor, aside from that, there is very little to maintain in gate motors though! Be specific when calling out that you want the oil changed/checked. It seems a “normal” service is considered as a dusting off…. that’s it!

Post a Comment