Troubleshooting Invisible Fence - Page 2

Walmart has a very good petard remover for just a few dollars and its environmentaly safe......................:)

Two Moons...does it take the egg off my face, too?

LOL....  just a little touch up with the wash cloth and you'll be right as rain.

I wouldn't worry bout it too much, I think it will blow over soon enough.

Do you think you've figured out what you'll do with your hidden fence system now?

Given my dog's love for digging, I think it's safer above ground. I'm going to check it very carefully for breaks, and check all connectors on the weekend. If that doesn't get it running, I guess I'll just have to replace all the wire, which will be a total PITA, as my lot is not small, and some of the areas on my fenceline are not easily reached. There's also a section where I had to put it underground, to bridge the gap between the house and the fence, and of course, I found a huge tree root there, and had to thread the wire under it...  then there's the area where I had to climb 20 feet up a ladder (I live alone) to string it high enough that it wouldn't zap the dogs when they come up the steps to enter the house.

Nope, NOT fun.

Maybe I'll just call Innotek if I can't find the break myself.

Sounds like a pain for sure.    I can't hardly put a shovel to the ground without finding a tree root or a rock.   I have seen home made wire layers similar to what the phone company use's only manual instead of powered. 

Honestly tho, if you need connectors or wire try to find an electrical contractor supply (wholesale) house, they will usually sell to the general public over the counter on most items for cash.   If you end up needing to replace your wire.

If you were just trying to keep animals out of your garden a conventional electric fence might be cheaper and it can be easily moved.   The dogs wont chew on it for sure..LOL

Anyway I hope my week ends nice, I have some outside work to do myself.  And now that the kids are grown I might as well be alone, they are too busy anymore to help out ole dad.    I have squirrels eating my sweet corn and am thinking about a hot wire around my garden.  Damned squirrels!!

Good luck with the fence Sunsilver.

If the fence is turned on and working, the dogs can't get close enough to chew it, can they?

That's true, but I don't need the fence in the wintertime. That's when they damaged it.

Home depot sells a cheap signal generator/receiver kit for about $19-29.  So do most similar stores in their electrical dept. It will work easily for above ground wires, and since mostof your wires are above ground, connect it to one lead at a time and by elimination you can find the break and repair whatever section you need to.  This is what innotek or any electric fence installer woulod do anyway and its a nice tool to have in your tool box for future problems than may occur.

That certainly sound like it would be cheaper than having Innotek do a service call! Thank you, Preston! If I can't find the break by checking the wire by hand, I'll give that a try!

From your description, I began with a similar setup by having my wire exposed above ground, but that lasted for only a short while. My current setup is a fence wire burried only a few inches underground and I've had excellent results. In fact, I'm on my fifth dog and have only had minor problems with the fencing. My fence is an insulated wire, 800' in length, which initially required one underground splice, since the wire only came in 500' lengths. Since then, due to various wire burials by phone and cable companies, it has had four or five additional splices. Burial isn't difficult, as there are tool rental companies that now rent wire burial equipment. Mine took about 1 hour to bury. When making any splices, twisting wires together and coating them, then taping them has always seemed reliable and can be done however, the easiest and quickest method has been to use wire splice connectors. These are available at many hardware stores (Lowes, Home Depot, etc.) and only require crimping the ends after the bare wire ends are inserted. The key is to use the connectors that have a heat shrinkable outer jacket. They come in different colors, depending on the wire sizes, but the yellow ones will accomodated the most common invisible fencing wires. Once the wires are inserted, and the ends are crimped, simply heat the ends of the connector with a Bic lighter and the outer jacket will shrink down to seal around the wire. One  really nice feature with the heat shrinkable connectors is that they contain a silicone gell, which seals around the wire as the outer jacket shrinks. Once done, the connection is good for longer than I can say. To date, at least two of my splices have been burried for 18 years, with no failures. I'm currently getting ready to bury an additional 700' feet of wire, to tie into the rest of my fence, and will be using the heat shrinkable crimp connectors for that as well.