# electric tape fence



## Tiff (Mar 22, 2010)

I have a tape electric fence and it doesn't seem to be shocking reliably so I am hoping for some advice! 2 days ago I was working near it and yesterday morning it was sagging in a few places, so I thought maybe I had knocked it down (although I was sure I hadn't touched it). I had looped some of the fallen and saggy tape around the plastic posts (no metal contact) and hammered in a new post because one was broken, just as I had done in the past, but now there seems to be an issue? This morning it was saggy again, another broken post (so I am guessing the horses are doing it) so I again put a new post in and un-sagged the fence. I alsochanged the batteries just to be sure as the "clicks" sounded quieter than normal, and now the clicks are again strong and audible. But I can see the horses again leaning over the fence, and touching it, without getting shocked. Do I have to completely re-loop the fence? It is basically a zig-zag shape as it just has to go from the barn to a fence, and had worked fine for the past 4 months, but now something is not working right!


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## neal68 (May 29, 2005)

do you have a fence tester? with the fence being streched it possibly could be that the wires are broken. or it could be the ground is bad.


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## wolffeathers (Dec 20, 2010)

We had this problem not to long ago and had to do a ton of research because we couldn't figure out what was going on. I'll tell you what we should have done from the start and hopefully save you some time.LOL

First step I suggest is to go to TSC and buy a fence tester. This is the one we have, it's $10 but works fine for us. Without it, you're almost working blind.
http://www.tractorsupply.com/electr...are-accessories/electric-fence-tester-3601457

Also, you want 2 or 3 grounding rods placed about 10 feet apart, connected to each other and then connected to the hotbox. When we first installed our fence charger, we popped one grounding rod in the ground and went on our way. When we started getting into trouble we researched it and most said poor grounding was probably one of the most common problems. 

Now, you want to take you fence tester and test the hotbox, disconnect it from the fence and the grounding line(the fence tester explains how to do this as well). This will make sure your fence charger is working. (Ours had died, even though it continued to click) So we installed our second hotbox. Hook the hotbox back to the fence and turn it on.

If the hotbox is working now you're going to work your way down the line. It's best if you have a couple people, one to work the hotbox and one to work the tester. Walk down the fence a little bit and test it with your tester. 

Hopefully your fence is just a simple loop, ours has several forks in it. We chose to cut our fence to find the ground, but you can choose to troubleshoot and maybe avoid cutting the fence. Walk the fence and make sure you are not grounding out somewhere, weeds, trees, touching nonplastic posts. If you are still not getting a charge, you can try what we did.


Now this is where our pasture gets a little tricky because it's not a simple loop, we have a couple of different forks in the fence to make a couple different pastures.We went to the first fork which is fairly close to the charger and tested the fence there. Nothing. So we cut the line seperating the fork from the main line and hubby found out real quick why I suggested turning the charger off before cutting it. So be sure to turn the hotbox off anything you go to cut the fence, chances are one end will be dead and other will be very much alive. By doing this we knew the line was hot up until the Y. After this, you reconnect the fence and turn the hotbox back on. So one line on the Y was grounding out, killing the whole fence. Onto the Y, we cut one line off of the Y and tested the fence. By doing this, when you cut the ground off of your fence, your tester should light up. If it doesn't the line that is still connected, is the one grounding. Basically, you just do this over and over again until the whole fence lights up when tested. Process of elimination.

We use wire, so it's a little easier to reconnect it after we cut it, but it sould still work the same with the electric tape. 

I hope you find what the problem is, fence issues are a PITA. Without the fence tester we would have never figured it out, because we had several problems. Our main hotbox had died(but still clicked like it worked), we didn't have a good ground, and the fence was grounding out in deep brush in the back of the pasture.


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## Tiff (Mar 22, 2010)

Thank you so much Neal and Wolffeathers ... I will go and get a tester, I do not have one. 

There is no brush anywhere as everything has died back. The tape is only touching plastic or wood.

When cutting the tape, how do I reattach the two "good" pieces? Just tie them in a knot? Or is it more advanced than that?


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## wolffeathers (Dec 20, 2010)

Tiff said:


> Thank you so much Neal and Wolffeathers ... I will go and get a tester, I do not have one.
> 
> There is no brush anywhere as everything has died back. The tape is only touching plastic or wood.
> 
> When cutting the tape, how do I reattach the two "good" pieces? Just tie them in a knot? Or is it more advanced than that?


That was the part I wasn't sure of, because we use plain wire. We just form a loop with one and and thread the other end through and basically just tie it in a knot. 

I think they sale splices for electrical tape fences, which is simply a buckle looking piece of hardware. 

Since the tape would be a little more difficult to work with(a little harder to splice). I would take the tester to is first and see if your hotbox is working first. Then just follow the line from the hotbox out around the pasture, our insulators were letting our wire hit the wood and let it ground out in various places. If that doesn't work, maybe someone else will know how to splice electric tape.


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## wolffeathers (Dec 20, 2010)

I just reread your last post. Wood can ground out a wire. You will need to insulate the electric tape from wooden posts(assuming that's where it's contacting wood) and wooden walls(if your fence runs around a barn or building).


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## Tiff (Mar 22, 2010)

I will double check about the wood touching any of the tape, I was out of the regular posts (well, a few had broken) so I bungeed a couple of plastic posts last month to metal poles, and had no problems with the fence (that I know of). And today was the first time I hammered in a wood post, bungeed the broken plastic post to it, so maybe that it the problem! Back outdoors to see what I might have screwed up! Thanks again!


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## 2horses (Jul 19, 2004)

You can get the step in plastic posts for $2 each at Tractor Supply. They have a clip specifically for the tape, and I've got a really nice cross fence made out them with a single strand of 2" tape. Nothing goes through it, including the cows.

I'm thinking all your jerry-rigging may have something shorted out. Try replacing all the bungeed-together stuff with those inexpensive step-in posts and see if that helps.


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## Tiff (Mar 22, 2010)

My friends that set up the fence for me used those step in poles (although they were $5 each at Orschelns! We don't have a TSC company around us.) 9 of the 20 poles have broken so I am not too excited about buying more of them. Are there any other options, or is that about it? Can I continue to pound in support poles (rebar, wood etc) and bungee the plastic to them, as long as nothing other than the plastic touches the tape?


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## malinda (May 12, 2002)

Tape fencing, especially the cheaper stuff is notoriously bad for shorting out. The tiny wires are easily broken when wind grabs the tape and it rubs against the insulators, or you are getting a jumping arc of electricity somewhere which will burn out the wire too.

Don't cut the wire if you can help it, and if you do, you need to use a splicer made for the wire to reconnect. If you just tie it back together you will not have the connection to all the tiny wires and you need that.

You can't have the tape touching wood posts, and I don't know why you are doing anything with bungees? Buy some insulators for the posts you have, and if your plastic step-in ones are breaking, buy some different ones. My step-in posts usually last several years unless someone runs them over with the tractor


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