When shopping for a driveway gate, most of the attention goes to the size and style of driveway gate. Folks don’t put a ton of thought into the posts those big gates are hanging from. So, today I wanted to go over the different driveway gate post sizes available from Iron Fence Shop and which size you need for your gate.

What you will typically find is that most metal driveway gates will utilize either a 4x4 or 6x6 steel or aluminum post size. Posts larger than that are typically fine, but I would be leery of posts smaller than that. Here are my two post cap styles in both 4in and 6in to give you an idea on the look of those post sizes.

Not only is the size of the post important, but the thickness and length of the post is key too. A really big post that is too thin is just as bad as too small of a post. Same goes for a proper thickness post that is too short and not buried deep enough.

The 4x4 and 6x6 posts we utilize with our Stronghold Iron gates are a 7ga thickness and our Infinity aluminum utilize a 0.125 wall thickness.

For post length, we always go with at least 3ft longer than the gate. So, if you have a 5ft arching to 6ft height gate, we are going to quote you an 8ft long post to go along with the 5ft height on the hinge end. Our 4x4 posts come in 8ft and 9ft lengths. Our 6x6 posts come in 8ft, 9ft and 10ft lengths.

Proper post size and thickness is important for fence panels, but its doubly important for large gates like those used across driveways. The reason for that is leverage force.

For a fence panel hung between two posts, that weight is being shared by both posts. Also, that fence panel is locked in place and not moving.

For a gate, all of that weight is being concentrated on the one hinge post. And if you have an arched gate, that weight is not evenly distributed. As the arch goes up in the middle, the weight increases along with the leverage force.

Think of my body as your gate post and my arm as your gate leaf. A smaller and narrower gate is equivalent to me holding this heavy iron ball cap here near my body, or the post. Its not tough to do and I could hold it here for a while if need be.

However, the wider your gate gets with that arched weight bias, the further that weight shifts away from my shoulder, or the post. Now that leverage force is requiring more effort from me to hold that weight way out there. That’s what your driveway gate posts are dealing with 24/7.

Also, unlike a stationary fence panel, your gate has to not only hold that weight, but also contend with it moving open and shut through its swing cycle. So, gate posts are doing a lot of work and need to be proper size, thickness and strength.


Let’s discuss what size post you need for the width of driveway gate you are buying.

Like many companies, our Iron Fence Shop gates typically come in the following widths:

• 10ft and 12ft wide single leaf gates

• 10ft, 12ft, 14ft, 16ft, 18ft and 20ft wide double (or split) leaf gates

Not every gate height and style will be available in those widths, but those are what you typically see. Using those available gate widths, let’s see what size gate post we would recommend.

Here are the post sizes we recommend using by gate width. Note that the wider single leaf gates use only the larger 6in posts. For example, if you are hanging a 10ft wide single leaf gate, it needs that big 6in post.

Whereas with our 10ft double gate made up of two 5ft halves, it can use the smaller 4x4 posts.

You’ll see for the most part 10-16ft wide double or split gates will use 4x4 posts. The 10ft and 12ft single gates along with double gates from 16ft to 20ft wide will use the larger and stronger 6x6 posts.

As you get into heavier styles like our Ring Puppy Picket, Regal and Bixler styles with more ornamentation on them; you may want to consider 6x6 posts for 14ft and 16ft wide gates. This also isn’t to say you couldn’t use a larger 6x6 post with a 10ft or 12ft double gate if you just liked the bigger post for looks. Consider these general guidelines for which gate post to choose.

When we work up an itemized quote for your driveway gate project, we will quote the post we think works best for the style and size of gate you have chosen. However, if you are just perusing the price catalog on ironfenceshop.com, use that chart as a good guideline when looking at driveway gate posts.

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