[DartmoorLiz]

Hi,

I love this forum and I can't believe how helpful everyone is. 

Has anyone got any experience or solutions for getting electric fencing across a small road. 

I am in the process of becoming more involved with managing the family small holding and the farm has a mains electric fence unit.  There is a road near the house and our 18 acre field is the other side.  I would like to strip graze it.  Maybe keep some ungrazed for hay or siliage or wild flowers. 

I have looked into battery fencing and I could do that but it seems a waste when I have a perfectly good mains set. 

Any ideas?

Liz

[old ploughman]

Is there a drain running under the road that you could use as a conduit for a length of lead out cable?

There was a locally famous case of a local chap who acquired some road closed signs and proceeded to dig a trench across the road outside his farm to drop a water supply in to the other side on a Saturday morning. By the time anyone asked what was going on the job was done and dusted. Depends on how busy the road is and how much nerve you have 

[robert waddell]

what type of road  a class b class or a c class
overhead would need to be 6-7 meters high mounted on poles
underground as old ploughman suggests   or mole boring /directional drilling both are not cheap
if it is a tarred road you cannot use a cable protector (it is considered an obstruction)

[Small Farmer]

I looked up the electric regs which said 5.2m which happily coincides with the height of motorway bridges.   Below that height requires signposting.  EU regs limit vehicles to 4m but higher ones can go on UK roads.

[Small Farmer]

If its a quiet road I'd look at making a groove with a cut-off saw and laying the cable in that.  Good fence feed out cable will be 2.5mm and double insulated, so tough enough.

[old ploughman]

  ha ha, that would be ok until they decide to scabble the road in prep for resurfacing  - might give the driver a tickle

[DartmoorLiz]

Thanks everyone,

I have no underground drain (that I know about but there is a strip across the road which does not freeze the same as the rest so there might be something going on there).  I can do the over-head route as there are telegraph poles both sides of the road - not sure what the people who own them would say though.  I'm really not sure about a groove through the tarmac - you cannot be serious ... can you?  I could try the Saturday morning trench but not sure if I have the balls to carry it off.  I have got time to plan this so if there are any other suggestions out there I'd be grateful to hear them.

Liz

[deepinthewoods]

might it not just be easier and probably cheaper to ust use batteries. its got to be easier than diggin up a road!!

[mab]

According to 17th ed wiring regs the minimum height above a road is 5.8m. not sure where you are legally on using the existing poles, though if it was me I'd be tempted.

for buried cables the minimum recommended depth is 600mm and should have 'live cable' tape over it, and idealy be SWA (steel wire armored).

mab

[Small Farmer]

Thought 5.8m was on road junctions.  Be that as it may even a 4m high truck on our local roads better have a chain saw to get past the overhanging trees.  We see the occasional GPS misdirected HGV with self-inflicted camouflage.  BT have strung telephone wire across our land at about 4m: after a storm it had sagged a lot and I took the neighbours phone out with a hedge trimmer once, working off a 4' platform

My electric fence will generate an induced voltage of over 2k in adjacent wires.  Would mixing that with telephone wires not produce interference?

Given the low energy content in lead-out cable isn't armoured a bit OTT.  I can see the point with 250v supplies but none of the energiser manufacturers recommend it for farm gateways etc that I'm aware.

[mab]

Thought 5.8m was on road junctions.

Well what the book says is 'at road crossings' - i.e. where the cable crosses a road (as opposed to the next column 'in positions accessible to vehicular traffic other than crossings' (which is still 5.8m anyway)).

My electric fence will generate an induced voltage of over 2k in adjacent wires.  Would mixing that with telephone wires not produce interference?

Given the low energy content in lead-out cable isn't armoured a bit OTT.  I can see the point with 250v supplies but none of the energiser manufacturers recommend it for farm gateways etc that I'm aware.

I must admit I was thinking with my sparky hat on - so I was exporting 240v to the other side of the road.

If you're using lead out cable then yes, if the poles are carrying telecom cables then you would want to keep the lead-out cable well away.

m

[suziequeue]

I can do the over-head route as there are telegraph poles both sides of the road - not sure what the people who own them would say though.

Don't think you would be able to use them.

We have asked a couple of times about things we wanted to use the poles in our field for and the general advice was that they are not our property and they are not to be interfered with or "made use of" in any way, shape or form.

[Small Farmer]

Still like my idea of cutting a slot in the road and using that.  6" would be more than enough for lead out wire

[suziequeue]

Yes I like that solution too :-)

And particularly the story about the guy on Dartmoor who just went and did it.

[chrismahon]

I agree with the slot idea. Petrol powered cutter with a wide carbide water cooled blade. Same system they use to put induction coils in front of traffic lights. They then back fill with bitumen type two pack from a mastic gun. Set to cut at 2" I'd say, otherwise it will take ages to fill. The problem to avoid is the road breaking up either side of the groove -then you'd be in trouble!