Burying the Wire
There are four ways you can bury the wire:
1. Hire a trencher, that will automatically dig a trench, lay the cable and bury the cable. A trencher is what the pro’s use to lay cable and REALLY speeds up the job, allowing you to lay cable at about 3 yards a minute. You can hire a trencher with a cable laying attachment for a day for around $50 at most tool supply houses, it is money well spent as it will let you halve your installation time. If you are laying less than 300 yards of cable, you can get away with hiring the trencher for half a day. For detailed instructions for using a trencher click here.
2. Use a power edger to dig a shallow trench, then manually lay the cable and bury it. If you don’t already own a power edger, your neighbors probably do, so take a six-pack next door and see if you can borrow it. Alternatively, buy a cheap power edger for around $50 or hire one for even less. For detailed instructions click here.
3. Manually. If you want to punish yourself, this is a really good way to bury the cable. You will need to dig a narrow trench, then manually lay the cable and bury the cable. This is really only a good choice for doing small areas where you cannot use the trencher or power edger. For detailed instructions click here.
4. No Dig Method You can simply lay your cable on the surface of the ground and staple it in place. If you have very light traffic areas, then the cable does not need to be burried. Particularly in wooded areas, over time the vegetation will grow over the wire and bury it for you. For details click here.
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{ 27 comments… read them below or add one }
Using the no-dig method: If I wanted to set up this system as a trial run, to make sure it worked for my needs, could I just staple it to my wooden fence, above ground?
My understanding of how this system works indicates that I should be able to.
ADMIN – Yes absolutely. In fact, if you already have a fence you can permanently staple or zip tie the wire to the fence and save a lot of time on installing the underground fence system.
This may be a dumb question, but would it matter how high I fasten the wire to the fence? I like the idea for the ease, but want to place it high so my dog doesn’t mess with it. Thanks!
ADMIN – Hi Steve, you can fasten the wire to the top of the if you want, you will just need to turn up the boundary width so that the signal reaches the bottom of the fence.
I would not worry too much about of the dog messing with the wire. With their collar on, they will not want to be near the wire, certainly not for long enough to say chew on it.
It is going to be fall here soon and I will be done mowing my grass. Can I staple the wire on the surface for training this winter and then pull the wire up again in spring after the dogs are trained or does the wire and collars need to be on forever?
ADMIN – Hi Paul, you will need to keep using the wire and collars. Once the dogs learn the new boundary rules, they would tend to stay inside even if you pulled out the system. But, eventually they would learn that that there is no longer a consequence for leaving the boundary area. It may take several months for them to make this realisation but it would eventually happen.
You could staple it to the ground now for training, and after the winter – pull it up and then bury the wire
I’m also contemplating a sprinkler system for my yard. Could the electric fence cable be laid in the same trench as the sprinkler line? It would be ideal to only have to trench once!
ADMIN – Hi Mark,
The sprinkler and dog fence wire can happily coexist. Perhaps mankind can learn something from this example!
Does it matter how much the terrain goes up and down with in the fenced area. My back yard slopes downhill quiet a bit into the woods.
Also how much wire comes with set if any?
ADMIN – Hi Ken,
You can run the wire along hilly terrain. This is one of the advantages of the underground systems, they cope much better with undulating terrain than the wireless system.
Most of the systems come with 500 feet of wire.
My backyard is approx. 1.5 acres of limestone. Burying the wire is very difficult. I tried leaving the wire lay on top, but rodents chewed thru the wire at least twice a week. Any suggestions.
ADMIN – Hi Jeff,
You live on a sandstone rock with lots of rats, my first suggestion is that you should move
Seriously, try spraying the wire with something unpleasant like bitter apple, to see if that will break them of the habit?
Actually, limestone rock with lots of skunks. ..Also a good reason to move. Can i put the wire inside tubing or hose-pipe? As much rain as we get in TN the bitter apple spray would be a regular chore. thanks for the help!
ADMIN – Sure, old hose pipe is perfect for the job. I was thinking try the bitter apple for a week or two and maybe they will form a bad association and stop doing it permanently.
Hi,
I have 2 Huskies who have dug under my fence and gotten away several times. If I staple the wire on the top of my four foot fence and increase the frequency, will it also deter them from digging?
What system do you recommend for this particular breed, assuming of course that you are familiar with this breed.
ADMIN – Hi John,
Huskies are funny, I think most husky owners would agree they are notorious escape artists and can be very independent (read stubborn). But, they seem to be very sensitive to the correction and despite their reputation for being hard to train, they seem to learn very quickly on a pet containment system (perhaps all they need is a bit of motivation). I would use any regular system (not the stubborn dog). The two premium Innoteks IUC-4100 & IUC-5100 are good choices because they help you get the collar fitted correctly, something that can be tricky with the husky undercoat. But pretty much any good reliable system will do.
Stapling to the top of the fence would work fine, you will just need to adjust the boundary width to make sure it reaches the bottom. That should take care of all digging and fence jumping.
PS – are the dogs over six months, I am guessing that if huskies aren’t jumping over a four foot fence they are puppies? If so, you should try and wait till they are six months old.
Hi, with this system can you place the wire next too metal fencing or hang it on metal fencing and still have it work?
ADMIN – Hi Nick,
You can place the wire on a metal fence and it will still work fine (the wire is insulated). If you have chain link, you can weave it through the fence or zip-tie it in place.
I live oceanfront Hawaii with a Jack Russell Terrier. How will these systems hold
up to salty moist conditions. I would also be unable to bury the wire as we are solid
lava.
ADMIN – Hi Ann,
We see a little faster deterioration in salty conditions especially where you get nicks in the wire. I would conservatively plan on replacing the wire more frequently, say every five years instead of every ten plus years. You may get a lot longer, but that would be a bonus. Be really careful where you splice the wire to make sure all the exposed wire is encased in the waterproof splice.
would shielded phone wire work the same as your buried cable! it has a copper sheath inside! would this cause a problem? also how deep can you bury it without causing a problem?
ADMIN – Hi Jeb,
I have never tried it, but I imagine the shielding may cause some problems and interfere with the signal transmission. You can bury up to a foot deep, you just need to turn the boundary width up to compensate. You usually don’t bury more than an inch or two, all most people really want is for the wire to be kept safe from the mower and the edger.
I have a circle concrete drive way that the wire would have crossed three times (and one area is wide enough for three cars to park side-by-side). Is there a product or recommendation for going over the concrete vice burrowing under (which would be difficult). Thanks
ADMIN – Hi Greg,
Yeah, tunneling under three car wide driveway is not fun! Most people will go across an existing expansion joint. You put the wire in the joint and then caulk over. If you don’t have one convenient you can cut a shallow slot with a circular saw, place the wire in the slot and caulk over. Some people will also lay it over the driveway (sometime protect in say an old hosepipe – sometimes just bare) but I think it looks a little messy and avoid doing it that way.
I have two 6 month old Golden Retrievers, brothers on is 50pds and the other 27pds. I don’t worry to much about them as far as the training they are both very smart, but due to budget issues I find myself smack in the middle of winter ready to purchase my system. I am looking towards the IUC-5100, due to the training aid. I already have training collar but wanting the ease of one system and not having to buy a separate collar for corrections inside the fence I think the system will fit. My big question is I have 5 acres, 3.5 is fenced in for large animals. I will be doing the entire perimeter but only have to bury the front smaller portion. What works in the winter for installation? Or am I better to just lay the wire out right now to start using the system and just staple it (where I can) and then bury in the spring once I thaw? I would really like to start training (using the system) due to living on a busy highway and these guys are replacements for my 5 yr old I lost last summer, to the road. All suggestions would be appreciated.
ADMIN – Hi Ryan,
I would avoid doing a winter installation. What I would do is just lay the wire out on the surface, weighing it down in a couple of spots to stop it moving too much, and stapling where you can. Then lay out the flags and right into the training. As you said, when the weather warms up, you can do the permanent installation.
I would like to put of fencing for my husky and boxer (mostly for the husky) we live in northern ontario and it is feb. Is there anyway to do it right now she has escaped everything I have tried. I hate tying her. I live on 32 acres would like to fence at least 5. Any help would be appreciated
ADMIN – Hi Rachel,
For winter, most people just lay the wire on top of the snow. Maybe weigh it down in a few places with rocks or use staples to stop it moving too far. Then when the spring comes and the snow melts out you can do the final buried installation.
We are getting a standard poodle puppy. We also just had a house built for us.
I would like to install the fencing just around the back yard, its a nice size but not huge I would say around a quarter acre. How do I install this so that it is neutral around the back of the house and patio area. I really do not want to take it around the whole perimeter of the property. Also our back yard goes about 25 feet into a wooded area.
I would like to train the dog to go there to do its business. What is the distance that the dog has to stay away from the fence. That part of the fencing I would not bury.
Thats muchly
Linda
ADMIN – Hi Linda,
You can set the distance that the dog needs to stay away from the wire using the “boundary distance” dial on the control box. You can adjust it from a few inches to ten+ feet, but most people will want it set at between three and five feet. Any less and it becomes hard to train the dog, any more and it wastes too much space.
Generally once trained the dog will not get too close to the correction area, and will keep about three feet away. So if you want to train the dog to go potty in the woods, I would run the wire at least ten feet into the woods, but if you are not burying the wire, it should be easy to just run it the full 25 feet (or more!).
To make sure the back of the house is not active, a couple of options would be to either run the wire tight around the front of the house, or to run the wire up a downspout, across the gutter and down a downspout .. that vertical separation over your back door will let the dog come in and out of the house.
Hi,
Just moved into a new neighborhood with approx. 1/2 acre. Previously didn’t have to worry about our 100lb lab getting out and about, but now the old boy (10 years old) needs to be contained in our yard. 1.) What system would you recommend? 2.) How do you go about getting across a driveway with the wire?
Thanks, Mark
ADMIN – Hi Mark,
The Innotek IUC-4100 would be a great choice for a lab, it is are all round favorite system. To get across the driveway, you would cut a shallow slot in the concrete using a circular saw fitted with a masonry blade (or use a preexisting expansion joint). Place the wire in the slot, then caulk over with an outdoor caulk.
Hello – We purchased the Invisible Fence system several years ago. We have now moved and wanted to get it reinstalled but it is going to cost $900+ for a much smaller area than we want to fence. We are thinking about doing it ourselves. My question is this: will the wire you sell work with the Invisible Fence brand fence? I would believe it would but wanted to ask before I purchase – we would like to fence about 3-4 acres.
Thank you for your time, Kimberly
ADMIN – Hi Kimberly,
The wire we sell will work with an Invisible Fence branded system. In fact, you can also use hardware store wire if that is more convenient. Just look for a single insulated copper wire that says that it is direct burial rated. Direct burial rated wire holds up better in the ground than regular wire. Both solid and stranded wire are fine.
Hello,
I am planning my installation(going with the Innotek IUC-4100) and have a question in regards to laying the dog fence cable on top of/in the same trench as another low voltage lighting cable(12ga). I have a small channel/trench across my driveway, approx 20ft, that I would like to use to lay both cables in(in order to cross the driveway), then I plan on using an outdoor cement caulk to seal them both into the driveway in one place.
Will the low voltage lighting cable cancel out the dog fence cable?
I’ve read that other dog fence cables can cancel out each other if they’re too close and in parallel, but what about cable for landscape lighting. The most voltage that will be going through this should be no more than 15volts.
Thanks and I look forward to your response,
Patrick
Hi Patrick,
We rarely get interference from low voltage lighting, but what can happen if you have parallel sections of wire is that the dog fence signal gets induces in the low voltage lighting cable. Then everywhere that your low voltage lighting goes you would get the dog fence signal. The only way to know for certain is to lay out the wire, connect it up and then take the collar out and test if you are getting the dog fence signal wherever the lighting cable runs.
Hello! We are moving into a new house soon and would like to keep our dogs out of the living room. I’ve looked at the wireless indoor systems, but due to the area we want to protect, it just isn’t feasible. The line we don’t want them to cross is about 20 feet wide between the dining room and the living room. We have a basement under that area with the floor joists running in the right direction. If I put the wire for a typical outdoor fence up between the floor joists (since I can get there from the basement), will the signal be strong enough to get through the floor? There’s 3/4 inch plywood decking and 3/4″ hardwood on top of that.
Alternatively, I can put wire just under the hardwood as it is being put down this week. What do you think? Thanks, Brian
ADMIN – Hi Brian,
I would run it under the wire under joist, the signal will get through fine – if need be we can just turn up the boundary width dial a little to compensate for the layers of wood the signal needs to go through. I prefer to run the wire in the basement, rather than directly under the hardwood because it is more accessible if you ever need to make a change in layout. Congrats on getting everything finished and starting the move-in!
I only need to lay wire on the front part of my property where my house will be in the middle of the wire I run. I know my run still has to be in a loop which I should be able to do by using the crawl space under the house but there are certain spots (driveway) where I know I will have to lay the cable on top of its self when I loop back to the house to complete the loop. Is this ok? I read somewhere that there needed to be a 3-5ft gap between cable runs but I wont be able to do that without putting it on my neighbors property. Thanks for all the great info on this site. -Bryan
ADMIN – Hi Bryan,
Unfortunately you cannot lay the wire back over itself, otherwise the signals from the two opposing wires will cancel each other out and you will get a dead spot! Wires need to be keep 6 feet apart form each other, so if your layout requires crossing your driveway twice, you will need to do it in two separate spots.
I only want to lay wire around my fence to keep my dog from digging out. The innotek system I bought says I need to create a double loop with 6 ft between, but my property line backs up on an alley that is concrete. Can I just put twisted wire along the back of the house to make the loop?
ADMIN – Hi Kalee,
Twisted wire cannot be used as part of the main boundary loop. The main loop is a single wire. Twisted wire is two wires. Thus you cannot splice 1 wire into 2 wires. Doing so only completes the boundary loop. Twisted wire can only be used to connect the boundary loop to the transmitter or connect one boundary loop to a second boundary loop.
To solve your problem, you can also run the boundary wire in the gutters so that your dog can safely walk underneath. If you have at least a 6 foot fence, you can also run your loop along the top of the fence and double back along the ground and that would give you the 6 feet of separation you need. We have several layout solutions on our site here: http://www.dogfencediy.com/installation/plan/
Hello, thanks for the informative site and advice. I just ordered the Petsafe stubborn kit and extra collar. I am going to need more than the included 500 ft of wire included with the kit. What are your thoughts on just getting some solid core copper wire from the home improvement shops? Would getting a thicker gauge lessen the likelihood of breaks?
The entire property is currently enclosed in chain-link, but the dogs have recently figured out they can dig under certain spots to chase the neighborhood cats. I was hoping to run the wire along the base of the existing chain-link, but there are a lot of weeds that grow along some parts of it. I don’t suppose the wire would take well to being clipped by a weed-whacker. Do you have any suggestions? I’m thinking I could either run it at the top of the fence, or maybe even just a foot above the ground.
ADMIN – Hi Sean,
You can definitely use wire from a hardware store. (You can also pick up some additional marking flags and waterproof splices while you are there) You want to try and match the wire, so that it is a consistent gauge all the way around. When you mix gauges, the signal strength varies – thicker wire will have a wider boundary width than sections with a thinner gauge. You also want a wire that says that it is “direct burial” rated – the coating on this wire will protect it better from your soil (you don’t want to use regular house wiring, it will corrode). Thicker gauges aren’t particularly helpful – the kind of thing like a weed whacker that cuts wire will just as easily slice through thick wire as thin.
I would definitely run the wire above the spots where you use the edger. Usually a foot above the ground level is fine.
We need a system for a yard that is not circular. Primarily a long straight line to keep our dog from running in the street that borders our rural property. we don’t mind if he runs in the opposite direction as it has no streets. Is there any way to do this?
ADMIN – Hi T,
Yes, you can run a length of twisted wire out to the area you want to create your boundary. Then run a long thin loop down the length of the boundary you need. Make sure that the parallel sections are at least separated by 6 feet.
Hello again (previous question above)
Just got everything in, and am about to layout the wire, but I just got stumped by the logistics of actually weaving the wire through the chain-link. It seems like I would have to start with one end of the wire and just kind of pull it through weaving it through the fence as I go along. However after just a few dozen feet, I imagine the wire would be tough to pull and even risk damaging it by putting to much force and scratching the wire insulation against the chain-link.
Is there a better way to do this? Should I just make splices every 100 feet or so? Thanks!
ADMIN – Hi Sean,
I usually do a very loose weave, so am only weaving it through once every ten feet or so. This lets me pull the wire through pretty easily. An even easier way to do it is to just ziptie the wire to the chain link ever ten feet – that way you don’t even need to pull the wire through.
I would not splice every 100 feet. The splices tend to be the weakest point in the fence and so the fewer wire joints you have the better.
Hi-
I was wondering how close the dog gets to the boundary before the collar stops beeping? Thanks.
ADMIN – Hi Chris,
The boundary width is adjusted with a dial on the wall transmitter. You can adjust it typically between a few inches from the line up to 10 plus feet from the wire. For most systems, the first 10 to 20 percent of the boundary width is the warning zone. A good rule of thumb is to set the boundary so it is 3-5 feet feet on either side of the wire.
I have installed about 3100 feet of insulated 14 gauge stranded copper wire around my 10 acre farm. Two road crossings in the loop are incased in half inch steel conduit. A portion of the wire loop is stapeled to the underside of a board fence (above ground across small streams). I used a tractor and a home made plow to berry most of the wire between 2 and 5 inches deep. Will this installation work with the signal generators you sell? which one(s) are best. If it will not work, how should I modify the installation?
ADMIN – Hi Henry,
Sounds fine – as long as you have a nice continuous loop the signal generator (base station) will work fine. With that large area and the deep burial – you want to use a system that can handle about double the size of your farm, so get something that would be able to do 20+ acres. Two good choices would be a PetSafe IUC-4100 or a SportDog SDF-100.
Hi,
We have had a system for about 5 years around our property and our Chinese shar-Pei in the last 6 months has decided it does not want to stay in the 2 acres it has to play in. We would like to turn up the boundary of wire so it would get shocked longer and maybe stay in the yard. The problem is if we do that it cant get out our door with out getting shocked. Is there anything we can put over that part of the wire to cancel out signal there or do we have to dig up and rewire that part of loop with a double wire? And if we have to do that can we just cut the wire and use a double wire and take it over to the “A” wire and splice it in there and splice in\to “B” wire that is right there? Thanks
ADMIN – Hi Mick,
There is nothing you can do to shield the wire in one section. But, as you say you can just sever the old wire, and run the twisted wire from the transmitter in the house out to where the boundary loop begins.
PS – When a dog unlearns the boundary the first culprit is usually the collar is no longer properly fitted and no longer contacts the dog’s skin so they no longer get the correction. You may want to give that a shot.
A case in point, my parents recently mentioned to me that their fence no longer worked after about 10 years and asked if I would replace it with something newer – the collars on their dogs were hanging loose like they were the doggy equivalent of Flava-Flavs. So of course the dogs were no longer getting the correction and had over the years unlearned the boundary rules. A little tightening of the collars and quick retraining lesson and the dogs were back to being happily contained.