how tight to twist fencing brace wires?

[dochockin]

I'm replacing the fencing along my perimeter. It's 6'6" deer fence with a number of H Braces at the corners and along the longer runs. As this is my first time installing fence I'm unsure how tight to make the brace wires for the H Braces or how to judge if the wires are tight enough. Any advice?

 

[TomSeller]

I'm replacing the fencing along my perimeter. It's 6'6" deer fence with a number of H Braces at the corners and along the longer runs. As this is my first time installing fence I'm unsure how tight to make the brace wires for the H Braces or how to judge if the wires are tight enough. Any advice?

I just snug them up, the fence tension will take it from there. Too tight and you can break the brace wires. Any pictures of your installation?

 

[Egon]

As stated, snug. They can be tightened more later but unwinding will not work. If there are two do them evenly. Been over fifty years since I done that.

 

[Ed of all trades]

Make sure to use two in a x pattern so the corner post won't lift up over the years. My fences were here before me and every corner post is pulled up almost a foot.

 

[DT86]

Make sure to use two in a x pattern so the corner post won't lift up over the years. My fences were here before me and every corner post is pulled up almost a foot.

In that case the brace pole is too short. Too high an angle on the brace wire is what pulls the end post out. I use a 10' or a double 7' with only set of brace wires for a nice low angle.

 

[MH8675309]

"Too high an angle on the brace wire is what pulls the end post out"


Could be, also the tension of the fence pulling on the corner, but more likely water got down the hole of the post and froze pushing the post up. It could be a cumulative effect of all of these too. Sink the corner posts deeper than the rest. Here (Michigan) we dig the regular posts down 42" but the corner posts are larger and should go down at least 48" and preferably a bit more. Pea gravel added to the hole to fill the bottom 8'' or so grips a post and helps keep it down too.

 

[Ed of all trades]

We have about 9 ft brace post and in 35 years the corner post grew about a foot.

 

[dochockin]

My brace rails are 12 feet, almost double the fence height. I'm only installing cross wires for the inline braces, corner posts should only have one brace wire, low on the corner post, high on the brace post. This is a counter force to the pull of the fence wire.

I'm still unsure as to how snug I should be tightening the brace wires. Perhaps someone can explain in terms of deflection distance when you push on the wire. My brace wires are ~13.5 feet long, how far should they deflect when tight, assuming spring temperatures?

 

[DT86]

I use hi tensile wire for braces and get them as tight as possible without breaking the wire. Using brace wire I'd think you would get it as tight as you can with out stretching the wire much.

 

[TomSeller]

I use actual brace wire on the one rising towards the fence run and regular barbed wire on the other one. I use an 8' treated wood top rail and 500 lb concrete fence posts. They don't budge. I don't figure the wires need to be too tight, the tension from the 5 barbed wires will tighten them up enough.