polywire electric fence help

[terricksa]

First post but long time lurker.

I have decided to go electric with my garden fence as I have been replacing all my other fence yearly and figured this would last longer(i hope)

Now I have gotten the fence , changer and posts, insulators, but now I have come to a crossroads on what type of wire I can use to hook up the actual fence to the charger and the wire to the ground.

for the ground, could I use house romex ground wire? And any help with the charging wire would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[lesa]

Welcome! Glad you decided to join us... I have no experience with electric fence, but I am sure someone on here will chime in!

 

[peteyfoozer]

Do you mean the wire that goes ON the fence? What are you fencing in/out? We just use a chunk of wire from the charge to the ground rod, and I use polywire on the fence itself instead of galvanized. That way if I want to, I can roll the 'wire' up and re-use it in a different spot, since I make my fence portable to relocate critters. If I was fencing horses instead of sheep/goats/cows/dogs I would use the poly tape, which is easier to see.

 

[terricksa]

i have the poly wire for the actual fence.

I am trying to keep the critters out of my garden.

I am looking for what wire to use to connect the controller to the ground and to the actual polywire itself.

Basically I think i have all i need to connect the poly wire to the fence posts but just am looking for options to connect the hot and ground wire to the fence and ground respectively.

Thanks

 

[peteyfoozer]

All the chargers I have have two screws on them. One, you wrap the polywire behind and tighten it for contact, the other is the one you put on the 'ground' wire. We use any galvanized wire on that, and wrap it around a piece of rebar that is pounded into the ground. The ground wire doesn't actually connect to the fencing wire, just the charger. Does that help?

 

[terricksa]

Yup perfect. I was reading that you had to have special wire to connect the polywire to the charger, but from what you are saying I can just hook it directly to the charger at the end of the run.

And just get some galvanized wire for the ground.

 

[peteyfoozer]

yes. Just make sure the stainless steel wires inside the poly wire make contact with the metal. It's ok to strip the plastic back to do this.