Solar powered electric fence problem

Posted this in Homesteading but decided I should post it in fencing too.https://permies.com/t/58218/homestead/Solar-powered-electric-fence

We've had a horse fence in our barn for ages and it's worked great. It needs plugged in but this has never been an issue. However, we've been hit my lightening pretty severely and the power to the barn is out. We aren't sure what it will require to get it back up and even if we do who knows if the electric fence will work any longer. Everything is looking a wee bit charred.

So we bought a very small solar powered electric fence charger. This is for our dog, btw. He jumps the fence and chases cars. The problem is the wiring of the thing. The fence where the dog is is fully wired, however the location of the current fence charger is extremely shaded, not good for a solar powered fence charger. Moving it adds the problem of grounding the system. Since we did not install the original one installing the new one is confusing. Since this is hopefully a short term solution is it fine to just pound some rebar in for the new grounding system

elle sagenev wrote:Posted this in Homesteading but decided I should post it in fencing too.https://permies.com/t/58218/homestead/Solar-powered-electric-fence

Please don't do that - it just makes work for us cleaning it up.  If you want it to show in more than one forum, you can add it to other ones yourself if you're a pie-holder, or report the post and tell us which others it belongs in.  

Short term using rebar will work for a ground, over time it will loose effectiveness though.  Ground rods aren't that expensive though, I would put a real rod in just in case things change and you end up leaving it there longer than you expect or your plans change.....it's cheap insurance and will work better.  Plus you can always pull the rod out latter (just use a pipe wrench to spin the rod while you use a fence post puller or tractor bucket to pull the rod out).