What Is a Bollard, and When Does Your Property Need One?

A bollard is a short steel post set in concrete to take a vehicle hit so the thing behind it does not. Most of the ones we set are 4 to 6 inch pipe, about 4 feet above grade, filled with concrete or left hollow. In dirt the post goes into a footing about 3 feet deep. In a slab it gets core-drilled through the concrete. Several fixed posts run $530 to $940 a post installed.

Fixed and removable

Fixed bollards are set permanently in the ground at storefronts, docks, equipment and any other spot a vehicle can reach, and they cost the least per post.

A removable bollard drops into a sleeve set in the concrete and lifts out at fire lanes, driveways and other openings that have to clear. The post locks to the sleeve with welded tabs and a padlock, a welded chain, or a twist-open lock. The sleeve and the lock add fabrication, so it costs more.

When you need one

Bollards are used in cases like these:

• A car keeps clipping the building corner, a column, or the storefront glass.
• A fuel island, gas meter, generator, transformer, or air and water station sits next to a drive aisle.
• Drive-through menu boards and pickup windows.
• Loading docks and warehouse doors that trucks and forklifts back into.
• Walkways and ADA routes that run alongside a drive aisle.
• Inside a dumpster enclosure, so the truck hits the bollard and not the gate post.
• After a vehicle has already hit something, and the owner or the insurer wants it protected before it happens again.

Which one fits

Most sites want fixed steel: lowest cost per post, and it stops the vehicle. Removable makes sense only where the opening genuinely has to clear, because the sleeve costs more than a plain footing. Flexible is for guiding traffic, and where that is all the spot needs we say so, because it costs less than steel. Tell us what is happening at the spot and we will tell you which one it takes. The removable type is covered on its own in removable bollards.

How they go in

Where there is dirt, we dig and pour a concrete footing about 3 feet deep. Where there is a slab, the post is core-drilled through it, as deep as the concrete goes. A bollard can also be bolted to the slab, and a bolted bollard is not as strong as one set in concrete. The pipe can be filled with concrete or left hollow. Bollards can be painted safety yellow or another color, powder coated, or left galvanized.

Before any digging or drilling we call 811 to get the public lines marked. 811 does not mark private lines, so irrigation, drip lines and old conduit are yours to point out.

What they cost

Several fixed steel bollards run about $530 to $940 a post installed, and one bollard on its own runs about $950 to $1,000.