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M Q

wrote:

Because of our dry weather I noticed my electric fences were not
working very well. I soon discovered that I got shocks when I touched
the ground rod. I knew right away the ground was bad. I only had a 2
foot piece of galv. pipe. so I went to buy a real rod. The guy told
me I need three 8 foot rods spaced 10 ft. apart, and gave me a free
booklet put out by the Dare Company. Well, OK, they do say to use
three rods, but I think that's overkill. At the same time my 2 ft,
pipe was way under rated. So, I will put in a real 8 foot rod, but
only one. I'm sure that will help greatly.

However, here comes the question. They say to not place the fencer
ground rod closer than 40 feet to the house or barn ground rods. I
can not understand what the reasoning is for that? I also looked and
the rod I am replacing is 18 ft from the barn ground to the breaker
box. My other fencer (other barn) that rod is only about 11 feet away
and that one is set in a concrete slab so it would be very hard to
replace, however, it's only a foot from the water hydrant so that
seems ideal since the ground is always well soaked. In order to
change the one I am working on, I'd have to move the fencer to the
other end of the barn, which means changing the fence and adding an
outlet. Or, I'd have to run 20 ft of wire to the rod.

I dont understand why the closeness to the building (power) rod should
make any difference at all. Do you?

Thanks

1) If it is close to a building ground, you will be partially electrifying
your building ground. While you won't kill small animals, it probably isn't
very good for electronics that rely on that ground, you will probably get noise
in radios, and if the intentionally electrified portion of the fence gets
connected to a good ground (maybe something falls across it), you could
get a surprising jolt from your building ground that might cause you to
have some dangerous accident.

2) If your ground gets very dry, part of the circuit that is supposed to
be going through the animal to the ground is not going to work very well.
I had an electric fence to keep deer out of an area. I found that in August
and September when the ground was very dry, it would not work very well.
Watering the ground near the fence helped a lot.

3) You didn't say what the fence posts are made of or whether you had a ground
wire run along the fence. If the posts are metal, running a ground along
the posts goes a good ways to establishing a useful ground for the
fence charger.