Choosing the Right Attachments for your Construction Site

Matching the tools to the job can be tricky. With multiple brands available and all of them having their own unique selling points and corresponding price points, how do you know which attachments are right for your excavators?

Ground conditions, site layouts and size, operators and budgets all come into consideration when choosing attachments for your excavators, not to mention the excavators themselves! Does a JCB 19C-1 handle a timber grab in the same way as a Kubota U27-4? Probably not. But knowing the attachments available to you is a start, and knowing what each attachment is best used for is even better.

Breakers

Breaking concrete, tarmac or rock can be the start of many construction projects. Whether you’re installing utilities or demolishing buildings, you need a hydraulic breaker engineered for strength and consistent power. You need to rely on your breaker to tackle stubborn surfaces without compromising on productivity.

The Need for Breakers on Sites:

• Highly effective for urban roadworks and renovation projects
• Reduce manual labour and speed up breaking cycles
• Perfect for groundwork trenches and sub-surface demolition

Pro tip: make sure your breaker matches your excavator’s hydraulic flow to maximise efficiency and avoid overloading the machine

Grabs and Shears

Site clearance, recycling operations, literally moving objects around sites and working in unison with your mixed fleet, having a selector grab or shears on site can be indispensable. Specifically designed for sorting debris and grabbing material quickly, a rotating or non-rotating selector grab works quickly and safely, reducing the need for manually sorting material or wasting time using buckets to push and shove entire heaps to disperse material. Shears are designed for cutting through steel and processing material with metal structures running through them. They’re the ideal demolition partner and have proven popular on recycling yards.

The Need for Shears or Grabs on Sites:

• Help contractors meet recycling and waste-minimisation targets, a growing priority across UK local authorities
• Enable safer separation of materials and reduce manual handling risks

Timber Grabs

Whether you’re in forestry or not, the likelihood is that at some point on site, or on your yard or farm, there’s timber to move. Or a hedgerow to remove. Or tree debris blocking the track. During the early stages of site clearance, timber grabs will give you the precision and grip you need to move uneven timber loads, logs and dead plant debris.

The Need for Timber Grabs on Sites:

• Site preparation on rural or green sites
• Clearing vegetation on infrastructure projects
• Support for rail works or utilities where timber needs moving

Compactors

Trenching, embankment work or utilities installation, a hydraulic compactor ensures your ground is properly consolidated without switching to bulky plate compactors or having to bring in a manual whacker. Pro tip: make sure your compactor has built in valves and shock mounts to protect your machine while delivering consistent compaction – very important!

The Need for Compactors on Sites:

• Ideal for backfill compaction in tight urban trenches
• Consistent results on hardcore made from mixed materials
• Reduces the need for separate compaction crews

Pallet Forks

Turn your excavator into a mobile lifter and completely eliminate the need for a telehandler or forklift on site. Simply put, a set of pallet forks are your go-to companion on any construction site for their versatility, cost-effectiveness and ease of use.

The Need for Pallet Forks on Sites:

• Move blocks, timber, pallets and building materials
• Speed up logistics within congested urban sites
• Reduce reliance on additional lifting equipment

So, whether you’re preparing ground for utilities, breaking up old hardstanding, handling demolition debris, or moving timber and materials, choosing the right attachment can drastically improve efficiency on UK construction sites.

By aligning your choice of attachment with the specific task and machine you’re using, you’ll find you work faster, safer and more cost-effectively. Better yet, choose an attachment provider with backing from UK support, warranty options, and a network of dealers with generations of experience on site.