Electric Fence Repairs Port Elizabeth

Why fences stop working

An electric fence is a long loop of wire outside in the weather, and in Port Elizabeth that weather includes salt, wind and the odd monkey or cat. Something in that loop eventually gives. A strand snaps, an insulator cracks, a branch leans on the wire, or the battery in the energiser reaches the end of its life.

The fence tells you something is wrong in one of two ways. Either it alarms when nothing is there, or it goes quiet and stops alarming at all. The second one is worse, because you do not know about it until somebody climbs over.

Signs your fence needs a repair

• The alarm goes off at night and there is nobody there

• The energiser shows a fault light or a low voltage reading

• A zone has stopped alarming when you test it

• Strands are sagging, snapped or touching each other

• Insulators are cracked, missing or turned to dust

• The fence died during load shedding and never came back properly

• Your armed response has stopped receiving fence signals

Tracking down false alarms

Most of the repair calls we get start with a fence that keeps going off. Nine times out of ten the cause is something touching the wire or leaking power to the ground. Vegetation is the usual suspect, especially after a windy week when branches and creepers have been pushed into the strands. Cracked insulators let the current bleed into the bracket. A loose join or rusted crimp drops the voltage just enough to trip the energiser.

We walk the fence with a fault finder, which points us to the section where the power is leaking. That means we fix the actual fault rather than guessing, and you are not paying for a whole length of wire when one insulator was the problem.

Broken wires and damaged sections

Strands get cut, both on purpose and by accident. Builders working next door, a falling branch, a ladder leaned against the wall. We splice or re-run the damaged section with the correct joiners, re-tension it so it does not sag into its neighbour, and replace any brackets that were bent in the process.

If somebody has deliberately cut the fence, let your armed response know and tell us when you call. We will check the rest of the fence and the energiser while we are there, because whoever cut it may have tested other spots too.

Energisers and batteries

The energiser is the brain of the fence, and the battery is what keeps it running when the power goes. Batteries usually last two to three years, and with load shedding working them hard that can be less. A tired battery shows up as a fence that dies overnight during an outage, or an energiser that keeps resetting.

We test both on site. If the battery is the problem, we replace it. If the energiser itself has failed or been hit by a power surge, we tell you whether it can be repaired, and if not, we fit a replacement that suits your fence length and alarm setup.

Earthing problems

A fence is only as strong as its earth. In the sandy soil common around Summerstrand, Bluewater Bay and the coastal suburbs, a single earth spike often is not enough, and it gets worse in dry months. A weak earth makes the fence feel soft and can cause the energiser to report faults. We test it, add spikes where needed and redo corroded connections.

Older fences and other installers' work

We repair fences we did not install, and plenty of the ones we see in Newton Park, Mill Park and the older suburbs were put up ten or fifteen years ago. Some are worth fixing and some are not. When a fence has rusted brackets all the way round, brittle insulators and an energiser that no longer has spare parts, we will tell you straight that a new electric fence installation is the better spend.

Repairs and your compliance certificate

A straightforward repair, like replacing a strand or a battery, does not change your certificate. Bigger changes, such as a new energiser or extending the fence, can mean the fence needs to be checked again. Because we are registered installers, we can do that in the same visit. If you are selling, see our electric fence COC service as well.