Fencing Contractor Skid Steer Setup: Doors and Enclosures

The best fencing contractor skid steer setup starts with a sealed cab and a shatterproof polycarbonate door. Fence work puts an auger, a post driver, and wire under tension a few feet from your face, and it does it in dust from the first hole to the last. A CNC-cut polycarbonate door closes off the cab, stops flying debris better than tempered glass, and keeps you comfortable through a full day of setting posts. Here is how to set the machine up right.

Fence work is hard on the operator, not just the machine

A fence crew runs the same skid steer all day, every day. You auger holes, drive posts, stretch wire, and ferry bundles of rail and pickets across rough ground. The machine shrugs most of it off.

The operator is a different story. With an open cab, everything the job throws comes straight through the door opening. Auger spoil blows back in your face. Post tops splinter. Wind, sun, and cold work on you hour after hour.

None of that shows up on an invoice. It shows up in how many posts you set before you start making mistakes, and in how you feel when you climb out at the end of the day.

Auger work: the dust never stops

An auger pulls spoil up out of the hole and dumps it right at the front of the machine. In dry clay, sand, or gravel, every hole sends up a cloud, and the wind pushes a share of it into an open cab. By mid-morning it is in your eyes, your teeth, and your lungs.

A sealed door changes that in one move. The dust cloud stays outside the cab where it belongs, and you can watch the auger flighting through clear polycarbonate instead of through squinted eyes. Our guide on dust protection with an enclosed cab covers the full picture, but the short version is simple: the door is the single biggest opening on the machine, so sealing it does most of the work.

Rain and mud season are the same story from a different direction. An electric wiper kit built for our doors keeps the view clear when the weather turns, and the kit comes with everything you need to install it.

Post drivers: chips and chunks at face height

A hydraulic post driver hammers wood posts into the ground a few feet in front of the cab. Post tops mushroom and splinter. Chips fly. In rocky ground, the post can deflect and spit stone chips along with the wood.

All of that happens at the height of your face. An open door opening gives it a straight path to you.

This is where polycarbonate earns its keep. It offers protection superior to tempered glass, and it does not shatter into pieces when something hits it. Our owner Leighton takes a hammer to our 1/2 inch thick CAT D Series door on camera, unedited, and the door takes it. That is the barrier we want between you and a post driver.

Wire under tension deserves respect

Anyone who has stretched barbed or woven wire knows the feeling when a strand is loaded up. Wire under tension stores energy, and if a strand breaks or a splice lets go, it moves fast.

You do not want an open doorway between you and a loaded stretch. You want a solid, shatterproof barrier. A hard polycarbonate door gives you that. A vinyl curtain or an open cab gives you nothing.

We will not tell you wire work is safe with the right door. No door makes a hard job risk-free. But there is a real difference between a strand snapping against heavy-duty polycarbonate and a strand snapping into an open cab.

The all-day comfort case for an enclosure

Fence contracts are not one-hour jobs. You are on the machine from morning to quitting time, often for days on the same line. Comfort stops being a luxury and starts being output.

A sealed enclosure helps regulate cab temperature in both directions. In summer, you shut out the dust and the hot wind. In winter, the enclosure holds warmth, and a small cab heater that wires to the machine’s battery keeps you working through cold-season builds instead of parking until spring.

There is a value angle too. A skid steer with a clean, well-fitted enclosure is worth more the day you sell or trade it. The door pays you twice: once in comfort on every job, and again at resale.

The fencing contractor setup, piece by piece

Here is the build we recommend for a machine that lives on fence lines:

• Polycarbonate door. The core of the setup. CNC-cut for your exact make and model, all hardware included, no guesswork. For example, the Bobcat M Series door fits the S450 through S850 and T450 through T870 machines and runs $1,695.
• Side window panels. If your machine has open sides, side window panels at $399 finish sealing the cab so auger dust cannot sneak in around the door.
• Electric wiper kit. $229, designed for our doors, keeps the polycarbonate clear in rain and mud spray.
• Cab heater. $119, hooks straight to the machine’s battery, makes winter fence work a normal workday.
• LED light bar. A 22 inch bar at $99 for early starts and late finishes when the daylight runs short.

Start with the door. Add the rest as the seasons demand it.

Open cab vs soft cover vs polycarbonate door

Soft covers from big-box accessory stores look cheap until the first post chip goes through one. OEM dealer doors seal well but cost more and put shatter-prone tempered glass in front of your face. For a full cost breakdown, see our cab enclosure cost guide.

What’s in the box

Every door kit ships complete, so you are not hunting hardware at the store the night before a job:

• The polycarbonate door, CNC-cut for your exact make and model
• Handle and locking latch with keys
• Hinges
• Weather seal gasket
• All nuts, bolts, and washers

The panel is CNC-cut for the exact model, while mounting varies: some kits bolt straight on and others require drilling and bolting. Follow the printed instructions in the box; our installation guide explains the general process.

We build doors for twelve brands: ASV, Bobcat, CAT, Case, Gehl, John Deere, Kubota, Mustang, Manitou, New Holland, Takeuchi, and Terex. That includes older machines nobody else builds enclosures for, like the Case 1840 and 1845C. If your fence machine is a twenty-year-old workhorse, we can still put a door on it.

Price, warranty, and shipping

Doors run $1,395 to $1,795 USD depending on make and model. That is the whole kit, not a bare sheet of plastic.

Every door carries our limited lifetime warranty against door failure or breakage: one free replacement for life for the original owner, under normal conditions. Hardware is covered for 3 months. On a machine that spends its life next to a post driver, that warranty means something.

Shipping is UPS 3 Day Air at a $150 flat rate, typically 3 business days (not guaranteed). We ship across the US and Canada. Installation timing is separate and depends on the exact model and the mounting steps in its printed instructions.

The bottom line for fence crews

Fence work throws dust, chips, and loaded wire at the operator all day. An open cab lets all of it reach you. A shatterproof polycarbonate door, sealed with side panels where needed, keeps the mess and the hazards outside while you stay comfortable enough to run a full day at full speed.

It is one of the few upgrades that protects you, your production rate, and your resale value at the same time.

Find your door in 30 seconds. Pick your machine’s make and model and see the exact door built for it: [Find Your Door]. Questions? Call or text (800) 781-8000, Mon–Fri 7am–4pm CST.