Using a mobile scaffold indoors

What makes indoor work different from facade work

Outdoors the facade sets your height and the ground sets your stability. Indoors it is all about space. The floor is usually flat and hard, which makes assembly easy, but the clear height is capped by the ceiling and the clear width by the doorways. So you rarely choose the tallest scaffold available, but the lowest one that just reaches and still fits down the hallway.

The second difference is that indoors you move more often. On a facade you shift along the same wall a few times. Indoors you go from room to room, past a staircase and sometimes through a hall. A model that passes through a door in one piece therefore saves a complete assembly and dismantle in every room. That is exactly why the room scaffold exists.

The third difference is the floor. Outdoors a castor can sink into the grass without consequence; indoors the same castor leaves a streak on parquet or a dent in vinyl. Floor protection is therefore part of your preparation rather than an extra. Beyond that the same rules apply as outdoors: guardrails up, toe boards along the edges, castors locked and nobody on the platform while you move it. More on those basic rules, indoors as well as out, is covered in the guide on working safely at height.

Key facts

Room scaffold, MiTower or narrow mobile scaffold

The RS44 room scaffold is the obvious model for indoors. It is designed to pass through a standard interior door from around 70 centimetres, so you can wheel it fully assembled from one room to the next. For ceilings, tall walls and work in a hallway that is the quickest way to work through a house. You will find it under room scaffold hire.

If you need more height than an ordinary room, for instance in a hall with a void or above a stairwell, the narrow RS51 comes into play. It is 75 centimetres wide with a platform of 245 centimetres, which lets you finish a good stretch of wall from one position. The wide RS52 at 135 centimetres is rarely practical indoors, except in a warehouse or a large open space. Both are listed under mobile scaffold hire.

If you work alone on a manageable job up to six metres working height, the MiTower is a compact middle option. Which of these models suits your room depends mainly on the access route and the ceiling height. The comparison between the two most chosen models is set out in the guide on mobile scaffold or room scaffold. So indoors you rarely choose on maximum height, but on the combination of access route and ceiling.

Measuring before you order: door, hallway, corner and ceiling

Most indoor problems come from one measurement that was never taken. A door of 83 centimetres tells you nothing if the hallway leading to it is only 90 centimetres wide and turns a corner. So walk the whole route from the spot where the scaffold is delivered to the room where it has to stand, and note the narrowest point and the sharpest turn.

Measure the clear height in every room you will work in as well. A living room, a hall with a void and an attic bedroom with a sloping roof each call for a different build. Under a sloping roof the size is set not by the highest point but by the height your head and the platform have to pass. If you cannot work it out, we will think along on WhatsApp from a photo.

The dimensions per model are listed under mobile scaffold dimensions and sizes, and whether your passage is wide enough is covered in does a mobile scaffold fit through the door. Allow five centimetres of margin if you are unsure, because door frames, skirting boards and a protruding handle each take up room. Write the measurements on a note and keep it to hand when choosing the model, so you do not walk the house twice.

• Width of the narrowest door, measured between the frames rather than the leaf
• Width of the hallway at its tightest point and the room in the corner
• Clear height per room, measured from floor to ceiling
• Height of your work point, such as a ceiling corner or a light fitting
• Space around the work point to set the scaffold down
• Obstacles such as a radiator, a window sill or a stair rail

The models side by side for use indoors

To keep the indoor choice short: it comes down to the combination of access and height. A model that fits through the door but does not reach far enough still leaves you working from a ladder. A model that reaches high enough but will not pass the hallway has to be assembled twice. So it pays to weigh both requirements at once rather than picking a height first and hoping it fits. If you are torn between the compact models, look at mobile scaffold or MiTower.

The table below sets those two properties side by side. Look above all at the third column, because it decides whether you can move the scaffold assembled or have to dismantle it for every room. In an average house that is worth half a working day. A room scaffold that passes through the door assembled means you only have to roll it along and level it again in each room.

Protecting your floor without losing stability

A scaffold on castors carries its weight on four points, and on parquet, a poured floor or vinyl that can leave marks. The simplest solution is a hard board under each castor, a piece of plywood or a base plate, with a sheet or felt underneath. That spreads the pressure and stops grit under a castor from drawing a scratch. Have those boards ready before the scaffold is delivered, so you are not hunting for them later.

Take care that floor protection does not cost you stability. A thick, soft layer under the castors lets the scaffold rock slightly, and you only notice that at height. So choose hard material that lies flat, check with a spirit level that the base frame is square and adjust with the levelling feet. More on that ground surface is covered under a mobile scaffold on uneven ground.

Sweep the route clean before you roll the scaffold along it. A piece of grit or a screw under a castor is the most common cause of a streak on a wooden floor. On work where you are masking up anyway, such as painting a ceiling, simply lay the sheet across the whole route first. The spot where the parts come in deserves a sheet too, because that is where material lies longest.

Ceiling height and the sum you make indoors

Working height is platform height plus two metres, because an adult reaches roughly two metres above the platform. Indoors that sum runs backwards compared with outdoors: you start at the ceiling and work down. With a ceiling at 2.60 metres you stand comfortably on a platform of about sixty centimetres. Build higher than that and your head meets the ceiling, so you can no longer work upright.

In a hall with a void or in a stairwell the figures climb quickly. There you soon approach the lowest mobile scaffold sizes. The range runs from 4.2 to 14.2 metres working height, so even a tall hall has a build that fits. The working height page shows what each size reaches. For a hall with a void, work back from the point you need to reach rather than from the ridge.

For the most common indoor situations you land on the lower sizes. Look at 4 metres working height for a tall living room or a light fitting in a hall. Always measure to the point you actually need to reach rather than to the ceiling itself, because that often saves a whole size and therefore parts you would never use. On a light fitting or a smoke alarm that often saves exactly the step to the next size up.

Working above a stairwell or in a communal staircase

A stairwell is the hardest spot in a house, because the scaffold no longer stands on one level. Part of the base frame sits on the landing and part sits above the stairs. That calls for a build suited to it and for ground that is level and load bearing; improvising with planks across the treads is not a solution.

The practical approach is set out in the guide on a mobile scaffold over a stairwell. What matters is that you level the scaffold before building it up, and that you do not move it afterwards without levelling it again. Anchoring points and stabilisers follow the assembly instructions for that height. Anchor points and stabilisers follow the assembly instructions for that height, indoors as well, where there is no wind.

In the stairwell of an apartment block the access route matters too: a lift, a turn in the hall or a narrow front door decides whether you can get in at all. For work such as painting a stairwell it pays to walk the whole route in advance, including the spot where the parts will be dropped off. Ask as well whether the building has any rules about working in communal areas.

Assembling in a room with little space

Steigertaxi does not deliver assembled and does not build the scaffold for you; you put it together yourself with the supplied manual and the instruction video. Indoors that means clearing space first: move furniture aside and lay the parts out in sequence, because a full room leaves nowhere to search. Allow extra room around the base frame, because you have to reach it from every side while building.

The sequence itself is fixed. Level the base frame, lock the castors, fit the frames, add the braces, place the platform with its hatch, and only then the guardrails and toe boards. Anyone following that order is never at height unprotected. The full step-by-step guide is in assembling a mobile scaffold, and the background to that build is explained under EN 1004.

In very small rooms, such as a bathroom or a toilet, it helps to assemble the scaffold outside the door and wheel it in. That only works with a model that passes through the door assembled, so the room scaffold or the narrow mobile scaffold. Check first that you have enough clear height inside to bring it in upright, and that the doorway is clear of coats or a mat.

Moving from room to room without damage

Always move with an empty platform and nobody on board, even over a single metre. Take off tools, buckets and material first, because anything loose can fall from the platform while it rolls. Lock the castors again as soon as the scaffold stands in its new position. Then check that all four castors are genuinely locked and not just the two you could easily reach.

Indoors the threshold is the trickiest obstacle. Do not force the castors over it, but lay a board as a ramp or lift the scaffold over with two people. Going through a door, allow for the handle and for the top of the frame, and have someone watch from the other side. Roll it gently, because a scaffold that picks up speed keeps swaying once you stop.

After every move, check again that the base frame is level. A floor that is flat in one room need not be flat in the next, certainly in older houses. How to deal with that is covered in the guide on a mobile scaffold on uneven ground. A difference of a few millimetres in the floor shows up at five metres as a clear lean.

• Clear the platform completely before you start rolling
• Castors off the brake, move, then straight back on the brake
• Cross thresholds with a ramp board or lift with two people
• At a door, watch the handle and the top of the frame
• Level again with the adjustable feet after every move

Weight on the platform and the strength of your floor

The equipment is Altrex, built to EN 1004 in load class 3, which works out at 200 kilos per square metre of platform. For indoor work that is ample: one person with tools, paint and material stays well below it. Do spread the weight across the platform rather than putting everything in one corner, and keep the walking route clear.

What matters extra indoors is the floor the scaffold stands on. On a concrete floor it plays no part, but on a timber upper floor or above a crawl space it is wise to spread the load with a board under the castors. Certainly with two people and material on the platform, a fair amount of weight lands on four small points.

More on what you can take up and where the limits sit is covered in the guide on load and weight on a mobile scaffold. If you have any doubt about an old timber floor, spreading the load is always the safer choice, even when you stay within the stated loading. If you are unsure, talk it through with us and we will think along about the set-up and the size that suits best.

Delivery, deposit and the practical side of hiring

The scaffold arrives in parts, so arrange a spot where they can lie for a while: a garage, a hallway or an empty room. Order before 15:00 and the driver delivers the next working day, anywhere in the Netherlands. The amounts per region are listed under delivery costs. If you are in Amsterdam, you can also collect by appointment at Zeeburgerpad 89.

The hire price consists of a full day rate for the first day and 5 percent of that rate for every following day. Indoor jobs often run over several days because of drying time, and that is exactly where the tiering works in your favour. Current amounts for the most chosen indoor model are listed under the cost of a room scaffold. If your job overruns you simply extend, because every extra day weighs lightly in the total.

You also pay a deposit, returned within one working day after the scaffold comes back complete and undamaged. For the room scaffold that is 150 euro, whether we deliver or you collect. The amounts for the other models are on the page about the deposit. Hand in all parts together, because a single loose toe board holds up the settlement. Count the parts against the list you were given while you dismantle.