How far do you stretch a fence?

slim · May 28, 2007

It is often said that, in life, the first step is admitting you have a problem. I admit I am "mechanically challenged".

When people talk about stretching a fence, how far does it stretch? Is it inches, feet or just to tighten it?

I am "trying" to put up a 4' tall woven fence for my wife's miniature horses.

The rectangle is 330' x 300'. I concreted 6"x6" posts in corners. The support posts I used 4"x6"'s. I attached a roll to a corner post. Wrapped The horizonal wires around the post and tied back onto itself.

Unrolled the roll past the next corner post. (By the way, I had to uninstall the horizontal H bracing of the adjoing side becase I didn't think about the fact I would have to drive though that area trying to stretch the fence!)

When I attached the fence stretcher to the fence and to my tractor, I tried to "stretch" it. I pulled the stretcher through the end of the fence. I guess I pulled too hard! Next attempt I doubled over the fence and attached the stretcher. Didn't pull so hard this time.

The fence was tight, but didn't seem to "stretch" much. I also thought it would walk up so that it was standing up. It didn't happen. What I did was go to the end away from the tractor. Started by pulling/standing the fence up by hand. Pounded in a T-post and attaching fence to the post with clips. I countinued working my way down towards the tractor that still is pulling on the fence using the stretcher.

Am I even close to how I should be doing this?

Thanks in advance for any help and suggestions.

wroughtn_harv · May 28, 2007

You don't stretch a woven wire fence as in making it longer. What you're doing is pulling the horizontal wires tight. A good way to gauge if you have it tight is it won't lay down on the ground. It'll stay at least a forty five degree angle if laid over.

A good woven wire fence should allow an animal to bounce off it if they hit it. One of the problems with woven wire is it's usually impossible to get all the horizontals equally tight. So we pull the majority as tight as we can and then we tighten up the not so tights be crimping them.

I believe you can find quite a few threads on the topic if you do a search with my name and fence installation here.

GaryBDavis · May 28, 2007

Hey Harv, you switched over to driving your posts yet?

wroughtn_harv · May 28, 2007

GaryBDavis said:
Hey Harv, you switched over to driving your posts yet?

Not yet.

: > )

Egon · May 28, 2007

A sight that has some good information as well as diagrams.

http://www.bekaert.com/na/uploads/PerPage/Agriculture/INSTALLATION%20GUIDES/INSTALLATION%20GUIDES/BarbedInstall.pdf

slim · May 30, 2007

Thanks,

That link helped a bit. What I thought was going to be a weekend project is weeks in the making.

Any other advice to help me avoid more lost time is still greatly appreciated.

DieselBound · Sep 11, 2017

wroughtn_harv said:
A good way to gauge if you have it tight is it won't lay down on the ground. It'll stay at least a forty five degree angle if laid over.

Digging this one up from the grave...

I was looking for this very info given by wroughtn_harv as I'm in the midst of erecting my first woven wire fence and hadn't been able to find out exactly how to determine when the fence is tight enough. Well, there's the common "until the crimps flatten out a bit" (manufacturers tend to say by 1/3, I believe). I've got fencing running through some undulating ground. I've got this section (about 540') stretched/tightened to the point of it wanting to stand up, about 45 degrees like wroughtn_harv notes, but I was thinking it ought to stand up all the way. Apparently that ain't going to happen: I didn't think I wanted to put more pull on it -I'm center pulling- because I'm running out of travel in my tensioning pullers and the fence material is feeling pretty tight and I don't want to over-tighten (I can sense the strain starting on the end posts [which are amply set and braced]). So...

Do I now crimp the two segments together and then adjust the fence up and down on the posts? I believe that I've read that one does the rises first and then the dips. I'm currently doing this by myself, so any tricks on how to do this single-handed would be appreciated: I don't know how to get the wire to prop up against the line posts other than to temporarily affix the wire to some posts (I did this in a couple of places until I could start to get some tension and then I removed them).

Oh yeah, I'm running fixed knot woven wire, 4'. Line posts are 4" - 5" wood spaced 20'.