Brick pier with swing gate on a lean

Hi all

Had the front of the house renovated two years ago (landscaping, carport and fence). Part of the works was the construction of a brick wall with blade infills and a matching swing gate for cars and a matching swing gate for pedestrians. Since construction, the brick pier with the swing gate for cars has progressivly worsened and now has a decent lean. The work is well outside of warranty from the company that did the work and i'd rather not follow up with them anyway, they ghosted us not long after completing the work and final payment was made. Fair to say i'm happy to pay to get it fixed.

I'm thinking there are two options:

1. Pressure grout beneath the brick pier foundation while pushing back to level
2. Knock down the single pier and re-build with better foundation prep

Does anyone work in this sort of area? Also, is there anyone in Perth who would be worth contacting to get this rectified? I can live without a gate for a few weeks if required and it should be easy enough to remove the gate hardware associated.

Cheers

I’d keep the steel gate frame independent of the wall, bricks just aren’t made for dynamic loads.
You might be best to get the driveway saw cut 300mm wide then pour a 300 x 450 beam across the driveway with a post in each end. The post needs reo welded on and lapped 500 with your cage across the driveway. Dowel the beam into the existing driveway. You could use a stone paver to make a feature strip across the driveway.

Seems excessive. This gate construction method is pretty common and lots have not had any issues. I'd say it's a foundation issue, not a brick issue as the foundation is rotating with the gate bending moment, not the brick pier itself rotating. If anything, the steel post should have been embedded at least 1m deep alongside the brick pier, however probably not possible the way it was built.

I have been recommended grout injection to stabilise and poly expanding foam injection to return to plum, or a combination of. Have been in touch with four companies and they were all willing to want to help and come check it out. I will see what they all have to say in person.

Any chance you can get some acrow props on to it and get it all plumb then dig out around and under slightly and add additional concrete to the footing?
Trouble with fences is the ground often isn't compacted as is done with a house slab and if the fence was only built with a small footing and no allowance for a gate hanging off it then it's just to heavy for the small footing and softish ground.
You see brick fences in Perth on the lean all the time because people don't bother engineering them.

That's not a bad idea. One company suggested they could remediate if I could straighten the pier. I've only been thinking of ways to pull the pier into place, not push it.

An acro prop might work to push it into place then backfill/remediate after.

Cheers

An acrow with it's base against the bottom of your pear tree may be enough.
Push it back then dig out behind it and add extra mass.
It looks like it's leaning in the direction that the gate opens. It's probably the extra weight and leverage of the gate when it's open is allowing it to slowly lean that way. Just get some extra mass in behind it and you should be right.

Yeah not a bad shout. I'll probably brace against a star picket or something instead of the tree but could be a good idea.

As you say, it's the bending moment of the gate when it opens so should be good to fix the foundation once it's pushed upright.

Cheers

If your asking for a structural engineer in perth i do know of someone from this group which he has given me lots of great help over the years he is a structural engineer. I do have his email and mobile. P.m me if you need it.
Good luck.

I should have followed up on this thread.

So, the pier foundation wasn't large enough on the side it was leaning towards, and the NBN cable went through the pier, just above the foundation. Now I remember why it was built the way it was.

To fix everything, I dug out below the foundation and used an acrow prop against a star picket to push into plumb. Then I had guys come and inject superfine cement grout into the ground below and tie in with new rebar into the foundation. Below the existing concrete foundation is now a 1000x1000x1000 grout block.

I've had no issues since and I was really happy with the guys who did the stabilisation work. Couldn't recommend them enough to anyone in Perth with similar issues or needing foundation/stabilisation works for your house.

Cheers