Fences age the same way buildings do, quietly and at the joints. Posts tilt after a wet winter, hinges sag on a busy gate, and a loading dock bollard takes the brunt of an impatient forklift. When metal fails, it is almost never on a convenient schedule. That is why mobile welder services exist, and why getting fence welding and post repair right, on site, matters to property managers, facility teams, and homeowners who want work that lasts.
A well-equipped portable welder truck looks like a compact shop on wheels. Mine carries an engine-driven welder with dual-voltage power, oxy-fuel for cutting, grinders, magnetic drill, clamps and jigs, and enough consumables to build or repair most items without a trip back to the shop. If the job calls for aluminum welding or stainless steel welding, I bring a spool gun and TIG setup with a clean argon bottle and dedicated brushes so we do not cross-contaminate. For heavy equipment and structural repairs, there is a stick machine that will run low-hydrogen electrodes all day.
This setup covers a wide range of calls: fence welding on wrought iron fencing and steel pipe, gate swing and slide systems, railing rebuilds on stairs and balconies, trailer ramps and couplers, pipe repair, broken loading dock guards, and odd industrial fabrications that crop up near production lines. The advantage is simple, no downtime waiting for shop schedules. We bring AWS certified welders and the right process, TIG, MIG, or stick, to the problem you have.
Most fences fail where forces concentrate. On wrought iron and steel systems, watch these zones first. The post base, either set in concrete or on a plate with anchors, takes wind load and thermal movement. If water finds a path along a hairline crack in the concrete and sits against the post, rust swells and the concrete spalls. Over time the post loosens and tilts. In coastal or deicing-salt areas, the timeline shrinks dramatically.
Rails and pickets fail in different ways. Pickets snap at heat-affected zones from previous poor welds or at thin decorative collars where stress risers live. Rails often tear at weld toes, especially if the original fabricator ran a cold lap weld that looked full but lacked fusion. Gates add another layer. Hinge barrels wear, pins egg out, and latches get slammed. A 12-foot cantilever gate can weigh 400 to 800 pounds depending on infill, and every cycle works on the hangers and posts. If the soil under the roller track frost heaves, you will see scraping, binding, and a fried opener motor soon after.
Pipe fences in agricultural and industrial settings tell a similar story. Horizontal pipe collects water, welds crack due to vibration from livestock or trucks bumping the line, and galvanized sections, if welded without proper prep, peel coatings that then accelerate corrosion around the joint. Knowing where to look before you start cutting saves hours.

On emergency welder calls, the priority is to make the site safe. I have stabilized a school’s perimeter by chaining and temporarily bracing a toppled fence line in 30 minutes so students could be released. The permanent repair came later. The same applies at loading dock and industrial sites. A bent bollard near a dock leveler can be cut away, the base ground flush, and a temporary barrier bolted down while we fabricate a replacement with heavier wall thickness.
Stabilization may mean wedging a gate, lifting it with a jack to keep the latch aligned for the night, or adding a quick brace to a railing until a full structural solution is ready. A good mobile welder does not overcomplicate the first hour. Control the hazard, then diagnose the root cause with a clear head.
A fence that leans is not always a bad post. Sometimes the root cause lives underground. For example, I inspected a wrought iron corner post that had shifted 2 inches in a storm. The footing looked intact. A quick probe found that the concrete bell was only 12 inches deep in expansive clay soil. The wind load and saturated ground caused a tilt at the soil interface, not a broken weld. We extracted the post, drilled to 30 inches, and set a new pier with 4000 PSI concrete and a rebar cage. If we had only rewelded and plumbed the post, it would have leaned again by spring.
On aluminum gates that sag, the culprit is often a cracked corner miter with minimal weld throat. MIG with a spool gun can make it look welded, but without bevel prep and a heat-managed puddle, the joint stays weak. I mark cracks with dye penetrant in the field when needed. Ten minutes with a spray kit can reveal hairline fractures you will not see by eye, especially on stainless.
Each process has a lane. MIG is a workhorse for carbon steel fencing and gates, efficient on rails and pickets, and ideal for shop-style production on site. For jumpy wind conditions, a dual-shield flux core wire helps maintain penetration without relying entirely on gas coverage. Stick welding shines when you must reach through paint, mill scale, or light rust, and when power is limited. In the rain, SMAW with 7018 kept dry in a rod oven beats fighting a MIG gun under a tarp.
TIG is slower, but when you are working stainless handrails or thin aluminum gates where appearance counts, it pays. A neatly brushed TIG bead on stainless resists crevice corrosion and looks like it belongs, especially in residential railings and upscale commercial entries. It also lets you control heat input on thin material to avoid warping a long picket panel that must still fit an existing opening.
Fences do not just mark boundaries, they act as sails. The structural path for load starts at the pickets, moves to the rails, then into the posts and their bases, and finally into the footing. If any segment underperforms, you see movement or cracking.
For post repair, I evaluate three things. First, embedment. A typical residential steel post needs 24 to 36 inches of embed depending on soil and wind exposure, with a concrete diameter 3 to 4 times the post width. Corner and gate posts deserve more. Second, corrosion protection. Galvanized or at least a zinc-rich primer before paint on ground-contact zones, plus a cap to keep water out of hollow sections. Third, connection detailing. If a post sits on a base plate over concrete rather than embedded, anchors must be sized and spaced with edge distance in mind, and the plate should have stiffeners if a gate hangs from it.
Gate frames like to twist. A basic rule that has saved me countless return trips is to add a diagonal brace in tension on swing gates, from the hinge side bottom to the latch side top. On aluminum, I prefer to brace with a rod and turnbuckle to allow seasonal adjustment without re-welding. For steel, a welded tube diagonal works, but only if the surrounding joints are fully fused. Hinges should be chosen by weight, not by looks. Barrel hinges with grease fittings outlast simple butt hinges, and for heavy equipment yards, I specify a hinge set with a combined capacity 2 to 3 times the actual gate weight to handle impact and wind.
On steel fence welding, I cut back to sound metal, grind to bright material, bevel where thickness exceeds 3/16 inch, and fit joints with tight root gaps to ensure penetration. If a post has thinned with rust near grade, I either sleeve it with a larger tube that extends 12 to 18 inches above and below grade, plug weld through the sleeve, and seal the annulus, or I replace the post completely if wall loss is severe. Sleeving makes sense when you want to avoid breaking out a large footing next to a finished slab or landscaping.
For aluminum welding, cleaning is half the job. Oxide removal with a stainless brush dedicated to aluminum, acetone wipe, and tight fit-up keep the puddle clean. TIG with AC balance tuned to break the oxide layer gives a cleaner bead on visible faces. If a gate frame corner is cracked, I fishplate the inside face with a matching alloy patch and then dress the outside to a smooth radius, so stress does not concentrate at a sharp weld toe.
On stainless railings, dissimilar metal contact is a hidden enemy. If the base plate sits on carbon steel shims or uses plain steel anchors, expect tea staining and crevice corrosion. During repair, I isolate with non-conductive shims and specify 316 stainless hardware in coastal settings. After welding with ER308L or ER316L filler, I passivate the heat tint so the chromium layer reforms, either with a brush-on citric solution or with a light electropolish tool if available.
Fences come with paint, powder coat, or galvanizing. Welding over coatings traps gases and creates porous, weak joints. Grinding back to bare metal is non-negotiable, but you can be strategic. Score the powder coat perimeter, remove only what you need, and feather back the edges so touch-up will blend. For galvanized pipe fencing, welding burns the zinc. Ventilation and a respirator with appropriate filters protect you, and the repair needs a zinc-rich paint or cold galvanizing treatment after cooling. I keep a brush-on 90 percent zinc coating on the truck for these spots.
Restoration on wrought iron fencing with ornate details takes patience. Heat control is key. Use heat sinks or wet rags near delicate scrolls, stitch weld in short bursts, and hammer dress the joint while warm to keep the line crisp. In historic neighborhoods, I often fabricate a new piece to match a missing detail rather than over-weld a cracked one until it blobs.
Industrial sites push fencing harder. Forklifts clip corners, yard trucks back into guardrails, and high-traffic gates cycle thousands of times each month. The fix is not just welding better, it is designing for abuse. At loading docks, I prefer bollards with 3/8 inch wall thickness and at least 12 inches of embed in a 24-inch deep pier, filled with concrete. We weld a cap on top to keep water out, and we paint or wrap with high-visibility sleeves. For guardrail systems, schedule 40 or schedule 80 pipe posts set deeper resist impact far better than thin wall tube, and repair sections should overlap with telescoping sleeves and plug welds so loads transfer gradually.
Chain-link systems often hide their weaknesses at tension bands and gate rollers. Replacing worn rollers with sealed-bearing units extends life and reduces opener load. If the bottom track of a cantilever gate bends, a short field patch will just move the problem a few feet down. It is better to cut out a full section and fishmouth a new piece with internal sleeves, then reweld and align the entire run.
Fence welding and railing work touches safety codes. A stair railing with a crack at a post base is a fall hazard, not just an eyesore. Local code often requires specific heights, picket spacing, and load ratings for guards. For commercial sites, International Building Code references set minimum concentrated loads, for example 200 pounds applied at the top of a guard. That is not much, especially in a crowded venue. I test with simple field checks before and after repair, a push at guard height and a look for deflection or movement at connections. If your fence acts like a spring, it will eventually break.

AWS certified welders give you more than paperwork. Certification means the welder has passed a test, usually a guided bend or radiographic inspection, on a specified process and position. For structural or high-liability repairs, that discipline matters. It also means procedure awareness. Preheat on thick sections prevents cracking, low hydrogen electrodes prevent hydrogen-induced issues, and post-weld cooling is managed instead of leaving red-hot metal to quench in a cold drizzle. These steps show up later as repairs that do not fail.
Most on site welding services price by a combination of mobilization, hourly labor, and materials. For small fence welding fixes, I often quote a minimum service charge that covers travel and the first hour, then a clear hourly rate. Projects with known quantities, like replacing 20 pickets and a gate hinge set, get a fixed price with a scope sheet describing prep, welding process, and finish. The biggest variable is usually site access. If the fence sits behind a manicured garden or across a soft lawn after rain, protecting the approach takes time and mats. I prefer to talk through these constraints at the start. Surprises at billing help no one.
You can shave hours off a visit by documenting the basics ahead of time. Take photos of the entire fence line, then close-ups of the damaged area, including the base and the back side if accessible. Measure panel heights and widths, and gate leaf sizes. Note material type, steel, aluminum, or stainless, if you know it, and whether the fence is galvanized or powder coated. If it is an industrial site, share load cases, for example, a gate that sees 300 cycles daily, or a guardrail that protects a 6,000 pound lift.
A short list helps here.
With that information, a mobile welder can arrive with the right consumables, like 7018 rods or ER5356 aluminum wire, and with a plan that minimizes cutting and rework.
A logistics warehouse called after a trailer clipped a sliding gate and ripped two panels. The gate was steel, box tube frame with chain-link infill, riding on V-groove rollers. The rollers survived, but the lower track bowed and the latch post twisted. We blocked the opening to secure the site, cut out a 6-foot section of the track, and spliced a new piece with internal backers so welds did not intrude into the roller path. The latch post had minimal embedment, so we replaced it with a deeper pier and a plate stiffener on the latch side. Turnaround was six hours on site, and the opener current draw dropped by a third after alignment.
A restaurant patio had stainless railings with rust streaks around base plates three blocks from saltwater. The original installer used carbon steel wedge anchors. We removed each post, TIG welded a cracked corner, passivated the welds, and reinstalled on fiberglass isolating shims with 316 stainless anchors. The rust staining stopped, and the manager stopped wiping posts every morning.
On a ranch, a pipe fence sagged over a culvert where cattle regularly leaned to graze. The quick fix would have been to weld the cracked rail and call it done. Instead, we added a post at the culvert edges with concrete footings outside the pipe, then ran a tension cable through the top rail with a turnbuckle. The next winter the fence held straight, and the owner has adjusted the tension once, with no new cracks.
Mobile welding happens in whatever the day brings. Wind can blow shielding gas away during MIG or TIG, creating porous welds that will rust. I carry wind shields, but there are limits. On gusty afternoons, stick welding with flux that shields the puddle is often the difference between a clean repair and a call-back. Cold weather slows cure time for concrete around new posts. I plan for heaters or insulating blankets when setting posts in December, or I drill into existing piers and use epoxy-set anchors with base plates when a full pour is not practical in freezing conditions.
If a site has quiet hours, say an apartment building early mornings, I schedule the noisy grinding and cutting outside those windows and switch to fit-up and TIG during the quiet hours. Communication, and a willingness to stage work, keeps neighbors off your back and the project moving.
Many properties are a patchwork of metals. A steel perimeter fence, an aluminum driveway gate, and a stainless handrail near the entry. That mix demands process changes. If we touch stainless in the morning, we switch brushes and cover the bench before moving to carbon steel. The reverse is just as important. A few flecks of iron embedded in stainless become rust freckles next month. On aluminum, the appearance of a weld matters to owners, so we plan to bring the grinder and flap wheels that keep the finish consistent. It is common to blend a TIG weld and then paint a carbon steel frame nearby in the same visit. The truck must carry both, not either-or.
Not every fence is worth saving. If a steel fence has lost more than 30 percent of its section at ground level across multiple posts, replacement is the honest call. On aluminum gates with multiple cracked corners and a bent diagonal, straighten and weld starts to cost more than a new frame, especially if powder coating will require a full refinish anyway. I tell clients this early. Repair is the right choice when you can restore original strength and add life without spending near replacement cost. When a gate or fence section has fundamental design flaws, like undersized hinges or shallow footings, you are throwing money at symptoms.
Photos of before, during, and after welding, with close-ups of critical joints and a note about process and filler, serve two purposes. They prove the work met your expectations, and they help when the next technician shows up five years from now. I include material notes, such as 2x2x0.120 steel tube rails and 4x4x0.188 posts, and list consumables, like E7018 for structural welds or ER4043 for aluminum gate corners. If an inspector or insurer asks for records on structural, repair, or guard work, you have them.
Use this when you walk a fence line with a welder.
Five minutes spent on these points shapes a repair that performs rather than merely looks fixed.
A shop excels at long runs of fabrication. The field demands improvisation, safe sequencing, and judgment. On site welding services bring that judgment to your fence, gate, or industrial barrier the moment you need it. We arrive ready to stabilize, diagnose root causes, and execute with the right process, whether that is MIG on a picket panel, TIG on a stainless rail, or stick in a windy yard along heavy equipment traffic. The best result is quiet. After the repair, the latch clicks, the gate swings level, the rail feels solid under a full body lean, and months later the coating still holds.
Good fence welding looks simple when done. It is rarely simple on the way there. With the right preparation, a truck welding crew can turn a leaning line into a straight, durable boundary, keep your loading dock guarded, and put a gate back into smooth service without tearing your schedule apart. That is the promise of mobile expert solutions, and it is one we keep by treating every post and panel like it carries the whole fence.
On Call Mobile Welding
917 J Pl Suite 2, Plano, TX 75074
(469) 750-3803