# Braided rope electric wire



## frdzeller (Jan 15, 2016)

Hello, I have been with out a horse for about ten years. I got the bug again. I would like to try the electric braided rope fence.
I have an old fence charger. Can I use that on a rope fence? Or do I have to buy a new fencer.? If so, what kind works well? 
Is the rope installed just like a wire electric fence.? Any and all ideas and information will be very much appreciated. thanks in advance Fred


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## Saddlebag (Jan 17, 2011)

Our dept of Agriculture recommends wire for perimeter fencing and the use of others if making separate plots. The ribbon and rope types are sensitive to abrasion which happens in windy weather as they slide back and forth in the insulators. The wire will withstand this. If you go with the rope, the charger will work. You will need to run a hot wire and a neutral and possible a second hot wire below. This is where your costs will soar. The wire is much cheaper.


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## frdzeller (Jan 15, 2016)

*Braided Rope electric fence*

That is exactly what I wanted to know. thank you very much.


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## avjudge (Feb 1, 2011)

I switched from 14-gauge electrified wire (in the 70s-80s-90s) to 1/4-inch electric rope (installed 3 years ago). I love the rope. There are some things to be aware of, but the ease of installation & repairs, plus the vastly better visibility, make it my choice. 



Saddlebag said:


> The ribbon and rope types are sensitive to abrasion which happens in windy weather as they slide back and forth in the insulators. The wire will withstand this.


Definitely true that the rope won't withstand abrasion. I've never seen a problem on my fence, though. Flexible posts in an open situation might be a different story. My fence is in the woods, with insulators mostly fastened to tree trunks.



Saddlebag said:


> If you go with the rope, the charger will work.


It will, but do be aware - there can be problems if your old charger was a "weed burner" type. I don't know if they're even available any more. I had a charger (now deceased!) of this type and all was good until rain caused some arcing from the fence to a bit of tree bark. The heat caused the plastic rope to melt & the electric strands aren't strong enough to hold the fence together. Now, with a modern charger, there's no problem.



Saddlebag said:


> You will need to run a hot wire and a neutral and possible a second hot wire below. This is where your costs will soar. The wire is much cheaper.


Depends on your ground situation. In New Hampshire we've always gotten a good return path through the earth. Historically I've run either a single hot wire or two strands with only the top one electrified. I did rig the current 2-strand set-up with the lower strand grounded, but as far as I can see the effective ground has been through the horses' feet. 

I understand that in drier or otherwise less conductive ground a grounded strand on the fence can be more important for effectiveness.

Whatever you do, read up on grounding requirements - I repeatedly see that the main cause of electric fence ineffectiveness is a poor/insufficient ground.

Anne


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## frdzeller (Jan 15, 2016)

*Braided rope fence*



Saddlebag said:


> Our dept of Agriculture recommends wire for perimeter fencing and the use of others if making separate plots. The ribbon and rope types are sensitive to abrasion which happens in windy weather as they slide back and forth in the insulators. The wire will withstand this. If you go with the rope, the charger will work. You will need to run a hot wire and a neutral and possible a second hot wire below. This is where your costs will soar. The wire is much cheaper.


 Why do I need a second wire for ground. When I use wire I only use one hot wire. thanks again Fred


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## frdzeller (Jan 15, 2016)

*Braided Rope electric fence*



frdzeller said:


> Why do I need a second wire for ground. When I use wire I only use one hot wire. thanks again Fred


 What is better 5/16 x 48 inches steel. Or 3/8 x 48 inches fiberglass.? They are with in ten cents of each other. Sorry about all the questions. I am done now. Fred


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## PaintHorseMares (Apr 19, 2008)

frdzeller said:


> Why do I need a second wire for ground. When I use wire I only use one hot wire. thanks again Fred


If you have soil that provides a good ground, you don't need to run a ground wire (we don't run one with our rope fence).
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## PaintHorseMares (Apr 19, 2008)

frdzeller said:


> What is better 5/16 x 48 inches steel. Or 3/8 x 48 inches fiberglass.? They are with in ten cents of each other. Sorry about all the questions. I am done now. Fred


I would pick steel over fiberglass.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## avjudge (Feb 1, 2011)

PaintHorseMares said:


> I would pick steel over fiberglass.
> _Posted via Mobile Device_


If these are both plain round posts/rods, I on the other hand like the fiberglass ones - they're non-conductive so I currently use metal clips to hold on the rope, and they're flexible so to a certain point they'll flex & then return - whereas steel will bend. (Beyond that point, of course, the fiberglass will snap.)

It also depends on your ground - if it's rocky the fiberglass will just mushroom (top & bottom) if you pound it and you either need steel, or I found in glacial till (sand/gravel bank) you can take some sort of spike and pound it in to make a hole, then put the fiberglass in that. In floodplain silt or less gravelly soil, I've had no problem pounding the fiberglass in.

I'm not trying to say that one is def. better than the other - just that it's personal preference, and depending on your particular situation, and you might happily go with either one.

I'm trying to remember if it's 48" or 54" posts that I prefer. The fence I'm installing & maintaining now is at my sister's and I haven't had to put in any posts this year, so I don't absolutely positively remember, and I can't run out & check on the extras because I'm not there. But I feel that when the ground is soft I prefer 54" posts. I put my top strands at 36" and that would let a good 17"+ go in the ground. That sounds like a lot but in moist soil with silt or organic matter I find less just isn't stable. In glacial till 48" would be fine because once the soil closes around the rod it's a much firmer hold. 

I've seen a moose step over my fence, back in the '80s. This part was in open field, so 2 strands of wire with 1 steel U-post alternated with 2 fiberglass rods, spaced 8 paces - about 24 feet - apart, then repeat (st - fg - fg - st - fg - fg - st - etc.). Anyway, the fence went WHIPPING back & forth after the moose stepped over but nothing broke or bent, I just had to go hunt down some of the plastic insulators for the fiberglass posts where they'd been launched off to quite impressive distances. I think I never found one and had to replace it, but that was it. I've always felt that the fence did better that day for being flexible.

(The fence was off when the moose went over it, so I don't know if/how he would have reacted if he'd been zapped. It was spring, before the horses moved down to the floodplain field for the summer, and I was actually out that day fixing the parts in the woods where critters had gone through it during the winter. The moose had already come through a part of the fence where it was down & I was fixing it, and it made me nervous having him so close so I went up to the house to take a break & tell my mom about him. We looked across the road to see him come out from the woods into the open field & that's when he exited by stepping over the fence as I described above.)


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## avjudge (Feb 1, 2011)

Grr, I did NOT capitalize "better" above ("def. better") - and it doesn't show capitalized in the preview - but I can NOT make it stay correctly lowercase in my final post. Autocorrect gone crazy?


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## Joel Reiter (Feb 9, 2015)

frdzeller said:


> I would like to try the electric braided rope fence.
> I have an old fence charger. Can I use that on a rope fence? Or do I have to buy a new fencer.? If so, what kind works well?
> Is the rope installed just like a wire electric fence.?


Fred, yes you could take an old electric wire fence and just replace the wire with electric rope, same charger, posts, ground, etc. The only thing you might have to change is the insulators if they don't have enough room for the rope, but most do. And it will work just as well as the wire fence. One difference is that freezing rain or slush will attach to the rope and make it sag.

On the other hand, the nicest rope fence is the one sold by Electrobraid, and it has a few quirks that would require some changes. For one thing, Electrobraid installation uses a tensioning device that pulls the rope tight as a bowstring. It will pull your corner posts over if they aren't adequately braced. A second consideration is the copper filaments, which require copper connectors to join the rope and to connect the rope to the energizer.

I have tried various brands of electric rope. I have never had a problem with abrasion from the insulators, and I live in a wind tunnel with temperatures that vary between 100 degrees and 40 below zero. The premium electric rope brands that are braided rather than twisted are especially abrasion resistant.

What I did find to be a problem with the cheap brands of electric rope is that they will disintegrate in sunlight. The good stuff is warrantied for 25 years; the worst will be falling apart after five.

I have three strands of rope on my fence. The top and bottom are positive and the center rope is connected to ground. I do it that way because when the snow gets very deep it acts as an insulator and it is very difficult to get a good ground through the horses feet. Having positive and negative wires on the same fence means a painful shock no matter how much snow is on the ground. The same is true in excessively dry land.

As far as energizers, a lot depends on your horses. Some horses will never go near an electric fence after the faintest of shocks and some won't give up until the fence practically knocks them down. If your horses stay in, your old charger is fine. If not, put the tester on your fence at various points and make sure you are getting 7,000 volts or more. If not, fist try increasing the number of ground rods. If it still isn't strong enough, I highly recommend this energizer:









The Kube 4000 is a rugged unit that creates a fearsome shock in difficult conditions. It sells for about $150 from Premier, but it's worth it for me to sleep peacefully. Since I got the Kube I've never had to apologize to the neighbors or explain to the sheriff why my horses were out by the state highway.

After first going to enormous effort and expense to buy 5" round green-treated posts, and stain them all white, and dig post holes by hand, I have about given up on wood posts. Most of my fence is now steel T-posts, bought at auction or on Craigslist for around $2 each. A T-post is easy to install (with a post driver) easy to remove (with a post puller) and a T-post is forever. I put a great big fat round plastic cap on the top of each post which acts as the insulator for the top rope. Red Snapp'r seems to hold up best.










Some day when I'm rich I'd like to experiment with the nicer looking Pasture Pro posts which are non-conductive composite material, easy to drive, strong, flexible, and much more attractive than T-posts. Unfortunately they cost more than $10 each. 










Links:
Robot Check
https://www.premier1supplies.com/detail.php?prod_id=13707&criteria=kube+4000
https://www.premier1supplies.com/detail.php?prod_id=17857&cat_id=41
ElectroBraid® - America's #1 Electric Horse Fence
PasturePro Post 1.625" x 6' White

Good luck with your new fence.


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## Saddlebag (Jan 17, 2011)

Moose have gone thro my electric wire. They don't back away, just keep going like a bulldozer. Insulators fly like bullets. It's not fun retrieving wire thro the thick brush and trees. And if a moose has taken out one side, it's down somewhere else. I've gotten a little smarter and made a few joins. The wire overlaps about a foot and clips are used to hold it. So much easier fetching 50' of wire than a few hundred.


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## avjudge (Feb 1, 2011)

Saddlebag said:


> Moose have gone through my electric wire. They don't back away, just keep going like a bulldozer.


That's what I've always heard about moose. Someone told me of watching one go through a wood rail fence in someone's yard, as you say like a bulldozer. They were very likely responsible for many, or most of the breaks that did occur in the woods over the years - not so much in the middle of summer, mostly I'd find them after the area had been empty of horses for the winter/spring, with the broken end dragged FAR along whatever direction the animal was traveling. Could be bear, too, though I imagine they'd be likely to pass under the single strand I used in the woods.

I've always assumed that that day I met one of the very politest of moose ever - I have marveled for 2, probably almost 3 decades at the way he walked along the fixed portion of that puny 14-gauge wire until he got to the break I was working on and passed through that opening into the pasture, then on his way out the other side stepped OVER the 3' fence in the field.

In general, for moose and other large wildlife I agree with Saddlebag that the strategy is to make the fence easy to repair, because there's no way it can stand up to them. That is one of the beauties of the rope. With wire, I'd splice in a section to repair a break; with the rope, I have a couple extra feet doubled back along the fence at each end, which I can release and pull back along the line to give me slack to overlap. 

I read somewhere of a way to make sure you get a good connection if you have to repair a break in rope and don't use a fastener: tie a knot, then tease out the wires from the loose ends of the rope, and cut back the rope (plastic) strands so the wires stick out. Twist all the wires together. Otherwise, you can use fasteners - the twisty "pigtail" ones here ("*Rope Links, 6mm")* give a good long connection and don't take any tools: 2015-2016 Wellscroft Web Catalog

Anne


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## Joel Reiter (Feb 9, 2015)

avjudge said:


> I read somewhere of a way to make sure you get a good connection if you have to repair a break in rope and don't use a fastener: tie a knot, then tease out the wires from the loose ends of the rope, and cut back the rope (plastic) strands so the wires stick out. Twist all the wires together. Otherwise, you can use fasteners - the twisty "pigtail" ones here ("*Rope Links, 6mm")* give a good long connection and don't take any tools: 2015-2016 Wellscroft Web Catalog
> 
> Anne


Huh. I've often just tied the two strands together with a knot and so far so good.


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## avjudge (Feb 1, 2011)

Joel Reiter said:


> Huh. I've often just tied the two strands together with a knot and so far so good.


Yeah, I'm probably making it way more complicated than it needs to be. I tend to do that.

The only place I've had an actual problem with a poor connection was a gate handle that I attached to & just doubled the fence back on itself. Now I wrap the wire a couple times through the hole in the handle, or if the hole is too small for the rope to pass through more than once then I _also_ pass a wire through and make sure that has good contact with a couple inches of the electric rope (twisted around or rope & wire go through the same fastener).

Anne


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