Ten cases, ten lines of reasoning.

01 Private individual

Demolishing a concrete slab with a hired machine.

The most frequent case, and the one where a mistake costs the most:
the machine is hired by the week, and a tool that will not fit loses the whole hire.

• 01 — The auxiliary line, before anything else A 2.5 t mini-excavator is not always fitted with one.
  Without it, no breaker is possible and you have to change machine, not tool.
  That is the first question put to the hire company, and it can be checked on a photo of the end of the dipper arm.
• 02 — The hammer class For 2.5 t, you choose a model rated for 1.5 to 3.5 t, and not a model rated for 1.2 to 2.5 t where the machine would be working at the top of its range.
  A hammer at the end of its range wears quickly and strikes badly.
• 03 — Flow, not weight In this class, the recorded values are around 15 to 25 l/min at 90 to 120 bar.
  It is not the weight of the hammer that makes its performance, but the speed of the piston:
  a heavy hammer badly fed strikes less hard than a light hammer correctly fed.
• 04 — The interface The coupler type can be read from the photo.
  The tool is then supplied with the matching mounting plate.
  The customer has nothing to modify on the hire company's machine — which they would not have the right to do without its agreement in any case.

03 Agriculture

Planting 40 posts:
auger or pile driver?

Two tools answer the same need by opposite routes.
The choice is made on the ground, not on the machine — and it is the kind of question a catalogue never asks.

• 01 — The nature of the soil decides In loose ground, a pile driver drives directly and goes fast.
  In stony or compact soil, it deflects or refuses:
  the auger drills a regular hole that is then backfilled.
• 02 — How the post holds A driven post holds by the grip of the soil around it; a concreted post holds by its anchorage.
  For a stock fence subject to the pressure of animals, that is not a matter of indifference.
• 03 — The diameter and length of the auger They are chosen with the post, not before.
  An auger that is too wide makes a hole that will not hold without compacted backfill.
• 04 — The interface, without difficulty A 5 t excavator in Klac E corresponds to the 3.5 – 5.5 t class of the system.
  The tool will be supplied with a Klac E mounting plate.
  The customer's coupler system imposes no limit on the choice.

05 Demolition

Sorting rubble rather than carting it away mixed.

The cost of a demolition job turns less on the breaking than on the carting away.
Sorting on site changes the economics of the job, provided the tool keeps up the pace.

• 01 — Sorting grab or grapple A sorting grab picks up and separates heterogeneous materials.
  A grapple takes bulk.
  On a mixed demolition site — concrete, scrap, timber — it is the grab that allows separate skips to be built up.
• 02 — With or without rotation Without rotation, the operator repositions the machine at every grab.
  With rotation, they turn the grab instead.
  Over a day of sorting, the difference in output is considerable — but rotation needs a second hydraulic function, which is not always there.
• 03 — Scrap wears faster than concrete The choice of teeth and blades is made on the dominant material.
  Equipment intended for rubble is quickly damaged on reinforced scrap.

07 Green spaces

Hedge trimmer or flail mower:
two cuts, two results.

Both maintain a hedge.
One trims it, the other mulches it.
The choice depends on what you want to see after the pass, and on what you want to do with the arisings.

• 01 — The saw trimmer cuts clean Circular saws, clean cut, clean healing of the vegetation.
  It leaves branches on the ground, to be picked up or mulched afterwards.
• 02 — The flail mower reduces on the spot It mulches and leaves the material on the ground, with nothing to pick up.
  The cut is more brutal, which suits a bank but less so a hedge you want to keep looking good.
• 03 — The maximum cutting diameter It is the figure that rules out the most machines.
  Going from a capacity of 10 cm to 15 cm changes the carrier machine required, not only the tool.
• 04 — Continuous work tires the hydraulics Unlike earthmoving, these tools turn all the time.
  Cooling the circuit becomes a criterion, especially in summer.

09 Rock

When the breaker is not the right answer.

The reflex, faced with rock, is to ask for a hammer.
That is not always the fastest tool, nor the least expensive in use.

• 01 — Fractured rock is torn out On a cracked or shaly bed, a ripper tooth works continuously and rips faster than a hammer striking point by point.
  It needs no hydraulic line.
• 02 — Massive rock is broken On a sound, homogeneous bed, the tooth skids and wears without penetrating.
  There, the breaker remains the only effective tool.
• 03 — The difference shows on the maintenance bill A tooth is a replaceable wear part.
  A hammer badly used on rock that will not break damages its internal parts, and the bill is on another scale.
• 04 — A survey is worth more than an opinion Two or three trial pits in the area settle the question in half a day, and avoid buying the wrong tool.

11 Expertise

Where this reasoning comes from.

From selling and fitting hydraulic excavator attachments carried out in real conditions, on machines of every class and on most of the coupler systems on the market.

The families below have been handled from end to end:
defining the need, choosing the interface, checking the hydraulics, workshop preparation and delivery.
That is what feeds the cases set out above, and what the À LA PELLE team and partners put at the service of your study.