Looking for input from fencing "experts" - woven wire fencing

[DieselBound]

A couple of my fence lines (looking to fence in about 6 square acres) have ditches on the outside. I won't be able to work from the ditch side, in which case I figure I'll have to bring up the wire (woven wire) on the inside of the end posts. Crudely, it would look something like this ("O" = end posts; "+" = line posts; "__" = wire [woven wire, fixed knot, is what I have planned for]):

~~~~ ditch ~~~~
O____+____+____O
~~~inner side~~~

Now, then, coming off these corners/end posts I have a need (based on maintenance and installation difficulties) to bring the wire up from the OUTSIDE of the end posts. Coming down one side of the fence line the wire will be on the inside and then the adjoining fence line the wire will be running on the outside of the end posts.

I know that the general rule of which side to run wire on is based on which side presents the need to withstand the greatest pressure (keeping things IN or keeping things OUT- with horses it works backwards- you want to allow some give when horses hit the fence, so with horses wire tends to be placed on the outside of the posts). I don't have any real "pressure" concerns in which case I am free to run either way.

Does anyone know of a reason why I ought not/can not do this?

Another installation question I have has to do with splicing wires: the fixed knot woven wire fencing comes in 200' rolls. Given that I'm going with graduated horizontal wires (13 of them) I won't have a lot of room lower down on the fence to splice. I've ruled out trying to do hand wrapping. Crimps also seem like they could be a challenge, operating the crimping tools in tight spaces. The solution, it seemed, was to use Gripples. One wire manufacturer, Bekaert, even includes Gripples with select rolls of wire (fixed knot being one type). This seemed like a perfect solution, and I'd pretty much had my mind made up on using Gripples, but I just ran across a thread here in which a couple folks said that they found that the Gripples didn't hold. Should I stay away from Gripples (and go with crimps)?

 

[Creamer]

OK. It has been a lot of years and I have never done that small of area. If I understand this right you want the wire on the outside of the corners and on the inside of the line posts. I do not see any reason why you cannot do this but you should keep the wire straight and set the posts on the opposite sides of the wire. The wire - especially woven - will have a lot of tension and if you try to bend it around the posts it will put a lot of sideways force and probably move the posts in time and loosen the fence.

Going on the outside of the corners works good because you will probably not end up with a splice right at the corner so you will be able to wrap it around the corner which is a good thing. Going on the inside of the corners would cause you to have to cut it and tie it off in both directions.

Splicing it - I am not understanding why you cannot just hand splice it - that is all I have ever done. I am not familiar with Gripples or other splicing instruments.

 

[DieselBound]

Creamer, sorry, it's kind of hard to explain in words (and cheesy "drawing" probably won't work either). It's not an issue of where the line posts go (though their bias IS affected). It's an issue of mixing which side of the end posts the wire runs on: the line posts would be set either to line up with the inside edge of the end posts, for wire run on the inside, or to the outside for wire run on the outside of the end posts. "Normally" folks will run the wire on all sides only on the inside or only on the outside of the end posts: based on what their "pressures" are.

I have a lot more property than this, but I'm only wanting this type of fencing around the immediate homestead.

As mentioned, this is graduated wire. Try wrapping wire within a 3" gap. I haven't done it, but I've had to mess with t-post clips in such tight spacing and just doing those simple clips, let alone making several wraps, is trying enough. There's splicing wire segments and then there's wrapping posts (can't recall off the top of my head, but I think there's 11 or so): multiply by 13 wires and this adds up to a TON of wrapping. I don't get paid by the hour!

 

[ustmd]

You should not have a problem with the wire being on the outside of the end posts at one end of the ruin and inside on the opposite end.

In terms of the spicing, to be honest, I gave up splicing. Now I just try to do my layout so that I have a "boss post" (a wooden post set in concrete) or an H brace set so that I can end/start a roll. If I have 10-30 ft of waste, I save it for use as wire trellises or in the garden.

 

[hslogger]

Don't fret over your splicing. I have used ONLY Red Brand woven wire, it costs more than the other stuff. If you have to splice a run, just hand splice the thing. Strip back the upright wire one or two sections. Weave them together or make a loop in one and then run your other wire in the loop and back to itself with as many turns as you can. Stretch the sucker and nail be done with it. Best way to take care of a woven wire fence is run a hot wire or two on the inside animal side

 

[DieselBound]

ustmd, yeah, thanks for the assurance on running the wire. I couldn't think of a reason why it could be a problem, but all I have to go by is what I've read (and nothing I'd read mentioned this).

hslogger, I'm not fretting over splicing. I'm just trying to understand materials and the amount of time to do all this. My experience securing graduated woven wire to t-posts tells me that messing with twisty things down toward the bottom of the wire is fumbly (and frustrating). If this were my only project I'd be a little less guarded about my time: I'm still a ways off from starting to put up posts and wire as I've still got a lot of prep work to do for the fence lines themselves.

 

[zzvyb6]

I use wooden posts. I always place the wire on the side which allows me to get the easiest access for my post hole digger for a post replacement, because breakage happens. I generally don't pull out the broken post stub, I just drill a new hole alongside the old broken one and patch it in.

Sometimes that's inside the corral area, sometimes its outside. For some corners, I round them out so a field or hay mower can made a nice cutting turn instead of squaring it off.

I also use springs on the wire to maintain fence tension and also don't hammer the staples tight because I want the wire to float laterally as the air temperature/season changes.

 

[DieselBound]

zzvyb6, yeah, "access." That's pretty much it. There's the installation and then there's the maintenance. I don't expect I'll encounter a broken post unless something big happens: tree falls on it or some big piece of machinery hits one. On the loose staples, yup, go it! (I tend to over-research things because I'm wanting to avoid making big mistakes like hammering the staples tightly- fencing vendors/manufacturers all have some great info.)

I'm doing t-posts along two sides (with interspersed boss posts). One side because access is tight to start with and I don't think I'll be able to navigate with a skid steer very well: I'm calculating out how many boss posts I'm going to need to install. The fixed knot wire will reduce the numbers of posts, t-posts as well as boss posts: figuring on t-posts every 15' and boss posts every 60' (3 to 1 ratio as prescribed by the wire manufacturer). I need to double-check my lengths, but I was shooting for about 500' on a side.