That buried dog fence wire took me 6 hours to trace

Went to hook up a new cable drop at a house outside Denver and kept getting weird signal loss. Customer mentioned they had an old invisible fence buried somewhere in the yard. Sure enough, their dog fence wire was running right along where I needed to trench. Spent 6 hours with a tone generator and a shovel trying to map it out before I finally got clear path. Has anyone else had to deal with buried pet fence wires or other random homeowner surprises taking way longer than expected?

2 comments

2 Comments

karenlane1mo ago

Well, isn't that just the kind of surprise that makes you want to pull your hair out? I remember helping my neighbor find a buried cable for their old satellite dish that took half a day for no good reason. They swore up and down it was marked, but we kept hitting dead ends with the toner. Finally found it wrapped around a tree root like some kind of twisted garden snake. Honestly, I think half the time homeowners just forget what they buried, or they swear it was straight when it zigzags everywhere. Makes you wish people kept better records, but I guess that's part of the fun of working outside.

milap351mo ago

Gotta agree with you there, half the time it's like people just bury stuff and forget it exists. I helped a buddy dig up his backyard for a garden bed and we found three different old cables all tangled together like a mess of spaghetti. One was from an old alarm system he didn't even know he had, and another was just cut off at both ends with no clue where it came from. Makes you wonder how many times the previous owners just said "eh, it'll be fine" and threw dirt on top.