How Do You End an Electric Fence?
If you aren’t an electric fence pro, you might be wondering about some of the finer points of installation. One of those might be how you end an electric fence.
Assuming you are talking about a multi-wire stranded electric fence, here’s what you need to know about how to end an electric fence.
Complete the Circuit
The truth is, since electric fences are a circuit, you don’t typically end them at all. Instead, the wire that comes out of the energizer works its way around the fence, and then it makes its way back to the energizer to complete the circuit.
If your electric fence is only there to shock (like a bear fence or wildlife electric fence), this is simply a requirement of the system, but if you have a monitored system, with an electric security fence energizer and alert equipment like strobe lights or sirens, this also allows your energizer to trigger an alert when there’s a short on the fence.
How to Create a Multi-Strand Electric Fence Circuit
Of course, saying that you need to create a circuit for your electric fence and actually doing that are two very different things. Along the way, you will have corners, gate posts and tension posts where your fence wires will stop at strain tensioners. You will also need to carry the current back and forth on all the fence wires until you eventually take it back to the fence energizer.
The solution is what we in the industry call “loops.” These are pieces of wire, as you can see in the article image, which connects one wire to another. These can be horizontal to connect wires on either side of a tension post, or they can be vertical, connecting a wire in one direction to one going in another direction.
Plan Before You Install
As you can see, the solution of how to end an electric fence is that you don’t end it at all. Instead, you ensure that it remains connected all along the path of each wire until you eventually bring it right back to your energizer.
Some electric fences complicate this a little more by having more than one energizer.
Sometimes, this is simply because the energizer can only handle a certain amount of wire, but more commonly, it’s to create electric fence zones for an electric security fence install.
Regardless of what your fence will look like at the end, it’s important to plan before you start installing. Figure out where your loops will go and in which direction, they need to be installed in. Decide what the best location for your energizer is, whether that’s in a guardhouse or security kiosk or just in the right place along the fence.
Make sure you have enough wires and clamps or ferrules to create your loops.
There’s a lot that goes into installing electric fences for wildlife, bears or security, and if you’re not sure what you’re doing, it’s always best to ask the pros, whether that’s the company that makes the equipment or a specialist installer to get the job done.
