Earth rod / stake

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bouncing_ball

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Where from? What is a cheap thing to use?

Would copper pipe work? Do scats / molevally sell earthing stakes?

Is there a cheaper DIY alternative?

Thanks
 
The better the earth ,the better the fence. Copper is best as it is a good conductor and doesnt corrode as easily as iron. Earth rods are sold by electrical wholesalers,trade suppliers. If you are on sand,use two or three and drive them in deep. link them together with copper cable. In Australia,they might bury an old car or truck 10 feet down to earth to ,because of the dry conditions and the distance the fences run.
 
I use a galvanised rod about 3' long & have another piece of metal welded acros it. If you don't have it as a 'T' shape you will have difficulty pulling the rod out when you want to move the energiser. In the dry weather I occasionally throw a bucket of water down around the earth stake to get a better earth. As someone has already said the, the better your earth the better & stronger the electric fence is. :)
 
Yes, mole valley does sell them. How powerful is the energiser and how long is the fencing? Sometimes it's necessary to get more than 1 earth stake and space them out at least 2/3 metres apart.
 
I've used the following

A proper stake
Copper tubing (though it's a bit bendy so be careful)
A motorbike front axel
Recliner garden chair frame (was already broken)

And currently Excalibur - sword. It's a prop sword from somewhere but is very cool!

In the winter when the ground is wet enough you can just use the metal prong off the plastic poles - never throw away a broken one ;)
 
The deeper the stake goes into the ground, the more effective the earth will be, so the prong off the plastic pole is not something I would suggest, unless you're using a very small energiser over a few metres of strip grazing.
 
Sebastian said:
The deeper the stake goes into the ground, the more effective the earth will be, so the prong off the plastic pole is not something I would suggest, unless you're using a very small energiser over a few metres of strip grazing.
Click to expand...

In summer it wouldn't work but in winter it works ok. One earth every 200m or so. I am running 16 acres split into 5 fields off a mains energiser - it's 7000v next to the energiser and 5000v at the furthest point.

Eta - the summer paddock has Excalibur which is about 1m long and then every couple of hundred meters I run an earth to a post prong.
 
Fides said:
In summer it wouldn't work but in winter it works ok. One earth every 200m or so. I am running 16 acres split into 5 fields off a mains energiser - it's 7000v next to the energiser and 5000v at the furthest point.

Eta - the summer paddock has Excalibur which is about 1m long and then every couple of hundred meters I run an earth to a post prong.
Click to expand...
Good thinking to have multiple earths, but with a mains energiser I would have at least one 2m earth stake. To fix the "summer problems" you could consider running a live/earth/live system.

Hopefully this diagram explains what I mean

earthreturn_detail4.jpg
 
Last edited:
Sebastian said:
Good thinking to have multiple earths, but with a mains energiser I would have at least one 2m earth stake. To fix the "summer problems" you could consider running a live/earth/live system.

Hopefully this diagram explains what I mean

earthreturn_detail4.jpg
Click to expand...

As you can tell from the output at the furthest point my setup works just fine thanks :)
 
Electricity works by creating a circuit.

Electricity flows out of the positive (+) terminal, to your wire or the wires within your white tape, then through the animal being shocked (where it causes an unpleasant violent muscle contraction), down to the ground, through the ground to your earth stake, and back to the negative (-) terminal of your energiser. The animal (or you!) is what completes the circuit so it "works".

The shock delivered by your fence will vary according to the power output (joules) of your energiser, the conductivity of your fence, and any leakage through poor insulation (vegetation, bad insulators, poor contact at joins, bad earth stake, etc).

I have worked on an electric fence and then suddenly realised it should have been switched on. Then I've checked with the tester and found that it WAS switched on! So how come I did not get a shock? My welly boots insulated me (and the electricity) from the ground as rubber does not conduct electricity so the circuit was broken! But I don't recommend you rely on that! Rubber gloves and rubber handles on tools, also horses' manes, can protect in the same way.

So, if you have damp soil, that should conduct electricity back to your energiser quite efficiently when the gap is bridged. When an animal touches the fence, you need good contacts between your fence, the animal, and the earth/soil for the circuit to be completed back to the energiser and a shock to be delivered, which is what the earth stake provides.

The critical factor will be the surface area of that stake and the conductivity between (a) the stake and the ground, and (b) the stake and your fence. So how your fence wire is attached to the earth stake and how deeply the stake is driven into the ground is more important than whether it is made of copper or steel. The old car is a good idea in Australia where conditions are very dry as it provides a large surface contact area, as do several stakes.

Hope that helps and makes it all easier to understand. Think "circuit" when thinking electric fences. You want the maximum amount of electricity to travel through the animal that bridges the gap between your fence and the ground as that is what causes the shock. Any weakness in the conductivity of the circuit will lessen that shock. The earth stake is just one part of the circuit.
 
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