Electric Fencing Help

[ladymcts]

In case you can’t tell, total newbie here. Been reading online, but missing practical knowledge. Trying to troubleshoot an electric fence that came with the farm. It was a DIY job and I didn’t want to use it, but I’m running out of time before my horses are kicked to the curb from their boarding barn.

I have a Zareba Digital Electric Fence Tester, Volt-meter. Model DEFT-1. When I stick the grounding spike in the moist ground below, and touch the two prongs to the fence, I’m getting a value of 0.4-0.6 on the fence nearest the charger. Once I get out as far as the first gate where there should be a wire running underground to jump the gate and back to the fence, I get NUTHIN on the other side. So I have at least one specific problem to work on.

But for this particular tester, the instructions just say I should get a read-out, and that I want a minimum of 2,000 volts. I find no buttons to configure, not even an on/off. I put in a fresh battery. The image it has in the instructions shows a “45.”

So am I correct in understanding that I’m getting a 0.4-0.6 out of a possible 2000? Or am I supposed to multiply that 0.4 by 1000 to get 400? (Below the readout it metions kv’s and multiplying by 1000).

Can you recommend a better tester? I’m most likely going to put in electrobraid to replace the existing 1/2 inch tape.

I tried ye olde arm test while standing in rubber soled shoes on very wet ground, and didn’t feel so much as a mosquito bite. I didn’t have the guts to take off my shoes and try again.

Next I’ll start looking at the grounding.

Here’s an example of the gizmo I’m using, wher eyou could see a closeup of what I mean about the readout and references to KV.
https://www.amazon.com/Zareba-DEFT-1-Electric-Discontinued-Manufacturer/dp/B000AYGF6O

[hosspuller]

The meter is telling you that it’s measuring about 500 volts. 0.5 x 1000 …

I will guess the wire under the gate is sort circuiting your charger. I would replace the under gate wire with the proper wire in a conduit or at least the black poly water pipe.

See the next post for a link to the proper wire.

[ladymcts]

We have progress!!!

Thanks for the replies hosspuller, that’s what I was hoping for rather than it being .5 out of 2000.

Turns out out once I started looking more carfully I was able to find a short one post before the gate. The insulator was broken so the wire was making contacwit the metal tpost.

So now my tester is reading 1.6-1.8 pretty much all the way around the paddock until near the end. So obviously I have another short to hunt down.

Today I started working at the fundamentals, getting weeds cleared out. Some posts lean and varying insulators were used, so I am going to sort of take an inventory of what needs to be replaced and go shopping.

[ladymcts]

And it got more interesting … I figured one of the things I could do for myself was to throw what I thought were on/off switches installed in a couple of spots, to figure out where the shorts were. Turns out the five acre pasture is electrified! The switch out there by that post sends the electricity from the paddock out to the pasture. So now all of a sudden I have even more fence to check. This is all DIY fencing and I’m thoroughly unimpressed by the quality I’m finding. Grrr …

[ladymcts]

Still doing battle with the fence … the horses have been here a few days and are mostly contained but sure figured out which section isn’t electrified. No need for a fancy tester, I have two very heavy expensive testers already!

Grounding - the existing fence has only one grounding pole as near as I can tell, and it’s installed right next to the water spigot. Water comes from municipal water supply, not well. At first I thought that was good because I thought you want soil to be moist near your ground poles. But I just found two things that said they shouldn’t be near other electrical grounds or things like water lines. Thoughts?

Charger - The one that’s there is a Blitzer 10 mile charger. It’s hard for me to test directly off the terminals because of its location. But assuming it’s putting out what it’s supposed to, should that probably cover a paddock and a 5 acre pasture? I know the paddock is 700 linear feet, but I don’t know how many linear feet the pasture is.

Charger, part II - Let’s say I were to spend some bucks on a better charger, do you have any recommendations? The reviews for Blitzer on Amazon were pretty bad, several people saying they stopped working within a year (2 year warranty).

Thanks in advance for replies and advice!

[hosspuller]

I’ve 20 years experience with my current electric fence. It’s about 6000 linear feet that I & spouse built.

Some things I learned. An electric fence is like a chain. It’s only as strong as the weakest link. A strong fencer will not make up for weak links… You’ll just have a strong spark at the fencer.

If you have a poor ground, the horses will know.
If you have weeds growing on the fence, the horses will know.
If your under ground wires are leaking, the horses will know. (use the proper wire in a conduit)
If your insulators are cracked, the horses will know (check regularly)
If the fencer is weak, the horses will know (buy wisely)
If your ground rod clamp/s are corroded, the horses will know (use a UL listed burial rated clamp)
If the ground rods are poorly driven, the horses will know (ran across an installed rod that was 3 feet into the ground. Seems someone got tired, and cut the 8 foot rod !)
If the ground is dry, the horses will know. (I put three 8 foot rods in a 30 foot line under the roof drip line.)
If the ground rod connection is poor, the horses will know (use one continuous solid 8 gage bare copper wire from all ground rods to the fencer ground terminal)

If you skimp in the initial install, eventually you’ll have problems and will spend a lot of time & money to find & fix it…The horses will know

[ladymcts]

^^^ all wise words, Hosspuller! And pretty much everything you’ve written here is violated in what I’ve been finding. I got two estimates to tear out and replace everything in the paddock with wood posts every 12 feet. One estimate was $2500 and the other was $8600!!! Neither quote was very detailed in terms of what I’d actually be getting. The first was “Two guys from craigslist,” (cheap) and the second was from a well respected fencing firm. I would’ve expected to spend $8-10K on doing an entire pasture, but not on just 700 feet, so that left me a bit leary of just paying so much right out of the gate. I’m not even sure if I will want to keep the paddock layout the former owner had.

So, I’m doing my best to figure out what I can fix and try to get thru this winter. The paddock has an inner drylot area and an outer grassy area with poop pile & hay ring. The inner dry lot has zero charge to it, and sure enough the boogers have been playing with the wires and tearing down the insulators, no surprise there.

I’m definitely NOT thinking that gee if I buy a stronger charger my problems will be fixed. I know I have a lot of work to do. But I was curious to get a feel for the Blitzer brand and the level of what’s there.

[ladymcts]

PS - I love the tip about installing the ground under the barn’s drip line. Excellent idea!

[ToTheNines]

I live in Texas and installed the Horseguard bi-polar, which avoids the grounding problem. Very good product. Highly recommend. Grounding would otherwise be a real problem during our summer dry spells.

If your posts are decent, you could probably redo insulators and tape quite cheaply. I had my posts professionally done, but did all the other work myself. Very easy.

[hosspuller]

Depending on your available time & money. You could do as we did. Hire the professional to do a section or paddock… with the understanding that they would teach you or explain the points of fence construction. The best advantage of DIY is you will have the skills and tools to repair or extend the fence. And you will need to repair the fence… Trees, storms, horses, tractors and mowers will take it down eventually. Buy enough materials to complete your fence project with some left over. Then you’ll have a ready stock of parts to repair or extend your fence.

[ladymcts]

I like that idea, thanks!

[BasqueMom]

FWIW, we are a Centaur fencing dealer and I’ve never head of Blitzer chargers. The Z brand seems to give customers
a lot of problems and we never recommend them. Stafix, Patriot, Gallagher and Speedrite all seem to do a great job.

[ladymcts]

BasqueMom - thank you! Blitzer does seem to be a subsidiary of Zareba. I wasn’t too impressed with the Zareba fence tester I bought, so was wondering a bit about quality. Gallagher is a name i know from telephony
etwork cable testing equipment, so they were the ones I was looking at the other day. Glad to hear of a second opinion on that front!