Digging
Good old fashioned digging requires the least equipment, but is also the hardest way to bury your fence.
First dig a very narrow trench about three inches deep with a pick axe or narrow hoe, going about one yard at a time. Place the wire in the trench and then bury the wire with the soil you removed. Tread on the soil to compact it, then move on to burying the next section of trench.
If the wire does not seem to want to stay in place when you place it in the trench, use lawn staples to hold them in place before burying.
The whole thing can be rather slow going, so budget about three minutes for each yard, longer if you have hard clay soils.
If you have soils that are particularly easy to work with, you can try the following shortcut. Cut the earth with a shovel, then push the shovel forward to create a v-shaped gap in the ground. Place the wire in the bottom of the v-shaped gap and then move the shovel and continue the process. Again this only works if you have soil that is very easy to work with, it will only cause frustration in rocky or clay soils.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Regardless of the wire burying method, is the 3 inches mentioned here, at any danger of damage if constantly run over by a heavy ride on mower. If yes, would the 18 gauge wire be letter in the long run?
ADMIN – Hi Gale,
If you go down three inches you will be fine even if running it over with a heavy ride-on. No need to do 18 gauge, but it certainly would not hurt.
My question is what do you do when you get to a sidewalk ? do you go under and if so how is this done? thanks mary
ADMIN – Hi Mary,
You can dig under. There are a variety of ways, but one of the easiest is to use a piece of PVC pipe to burrow under.
But, most people will cut a shallow slot or use an existing expansion joint. Lay the wire in the slot and then seal over.
There is a lot more detail in the “driveways and pathways” under the installation menu of the dropdown menu.
what is the maximum dept the wire can be buried without compromising effectiveness? Thank you
ADMIN – Hi Joao,
If you go deep, you just need to turn up the boundary width to compensate. This is not a problem unless is causes an issue in some other part of the yard where the wire is not buried as deep and the boundary will now be too wide.
In most circumstances you don’t want to go down much more than a foot.