Mobile scaffold or room scaffold: which to choose?

What the two towers have in common

Both are aluminium, both are made by Altrex and both are built to EN 1004, the European standard for mobile access towers. They fall into load class 3, which comes down to 200 kilos per square metre of platform. You click them together without tools, they stand on castor wheels with brakes and they support the same way of working: a flat platform with guardrails all around instead of balancing on a ladder.

The way you hire them is identical as well. We deliver both in parts and do not assemble them for you. With the hire you receive a manual and an instruction video, and you put the tower together yourself in the order they set out. That applies to the room scaffold just as much as to the mobile scaffold, only the first is quicker because it has fewer parts.

So the difference is not in quality or in the way you assemble them, but in size and in where you can take them. The room scaffold is made for indoor work at limited height, the mobile scaffold for facades, roofs and everything in between. Once you know the height you have to reach and the opening the tower has to pass through, the choice almost makes itself.

Key facts

The size difference in centimetres

The RS44 room scaffold is built to pass through a standard interior door from around 70 centimetres. That is the whole idea behind it: you roll it from the hallway into the bedroom without undoing a single part. The RS51 is the narrow mobile scaffold at 75 centimetres wide, the RS52 the wide one at 135 centimetres. Both mobile scaffolds have a platform length of 245 centimetres, so on that point they do not differ.

Those few centimetres between 70 and 75 sound like nothing, but indoors they decide between rolling through and taking parts off. An RS51 passes wider openings and patio doors, but not every interior door. If you want to work indoors with a mobile scaffold, measure the narrowest opening on the route first, including the skirting and the door handle that eat into the clear width. Will a mobile scaffold fit through the door goes through that measurement.

Outdoors the width works the other way round. There 135 centimetres is not a problem but an advantage, because you can keep more material beside you and the tower stands on a wider base. If there is only a narrow strip between the house and the fence, the RS51 is the model that gets through. The difference between those widths is set out in dimensions and sizes.

Jobs the room scaffold is made for

The room scaffold comes into its own for everything that happens above your head indoors. You stand on a flat platform at working height, you can put your tools down beside you and you move the tower to the next corner of the room without taking it apart. On ceiling work that saves a great deal, because otherwise you climb off a ladder every few metres and carry your materials along each time.

In a stairwell or beside a stairwell opening a low, compact tower is often the only workable answer, provided you can set it up level. If you are working with paint, plaster or adhesive, put sheeting under the wheels so the floor stays clean. How to deal with floors, thresholds and limited ceiling height indoors is covered in using a scaffold indoors.

• Painting ceilings in living rooms and bedrooms
• Plastering ceilings and tall walls
• Wallpapering high walls and finishing the top edges
• Fitting spotlights, tracks and pendant lights to the ceiling
• Mounting smoke alarms, ventilation grilles and sensors
• Work above a stairwell opening, as long as the tower stands level and firm

Jobs that call for a mobile scaffold

As soon as you are working outdoors on a facade, or higher than a room allows, the mobile scaffold is the model. Our range covers working heights from 4.2 to 14.2 metres, so from a low extension to well above the gutter of a terraced house. You roll the tower along the facade over paved ground and work bay by bay, without dismantling in between.

That makes it right for the long jobs: painting a facade takes days, gutter work runs the full width of the house and solar panels ask for a stable platform with room for materials. Which height each job needs is described per task on applications, and per metre on working height. On that kind of work a wider platform pays for itself quickly, because you can leave tools and materials up there.

• Painting a facade and sanding and finishing window frames
• Cleaning gutters, repairing or replacing them
• Fitting solar panels and mounting optimisers
• Replacing or painting fascia boards and barge boards
• Washing windows on upper floors without tilting sashes
• Work on a dormer, a chimney or a projecting bay

Work out the working height first, then the model

Working height is platform height plus two metres, because that is the reach of an adult. Standing at three metres, you work comfortably at five. So calculate your job backwards: measure the height of the point your hands have to reach, subtract two metres and you know where the platform has to be. Only then do you look at which model reaches that height.

Indoors you usually run into the ceiling rather than the tower, outdoors it is the other way round. An average ceiling is done with a low set-up, while a gutter on the first or second floor quickly lands you in the range where only a mobile scaffold fits. The pages per floor level indicate roughly where you end up for each storey.

If you are between two heights, take the higher one that still fits. A platform half a metre too low means reaching and standing on your toes, and that is exactly the behaviour accidents come from. How to make that calculation properly is set out in how high a scaffold needs to be per floor. When in doubt, order the next height up, so you have some room to spare if things turn out differently.

The route through the house often decides

With indoor work the room is rarely the problem, the way to it is. Count the doors, the corners in the hallway, the thresholds and the stairs you have to pass. A room scaffold is designed for that route and rolls straight through, while a mobile scaffold has to be partly dismantled at every tight opening. That costs time on every move, and on a job across several rooms it adds up fast.

Watch the clear height as well. An assembled tower that fits in width can still be too tall to roll under a door frame or a beam. So measure the lowest passage on the route and compare it with the height of the tower as you intend to move it. In many houses that single point decides whether you can move within a floor or have to take a level off after all.

Floors, thresholds and rolling indoors

Indoors you roll over floors you want to keep intact. Parquet, poured floors and tiles take wheel pressure fine as long as there is no grit under the castors, so sweep the route before you move. When in doubt, lay hardboard or thick card on the spots where you stand most often. A room scaffold is light enough for two people to lift over a threshold.

Put the brakes on as soon as the tower is in place, indoors too. A smooth floor lets an unloaded tower roll away more easily than you expect, certainly if you push against a wall from the platform. Climb up on the inside using the rungs and close the hatch behind you, exactly as you would outdoors. The full list of safety points is in fall protection on a mobile scaffold.

Outdoors: wind, ground and stabilisers

Once the tower stands outside, factors come in that play no role indoors. Wind pushes against the tower and against you, and that effect grows the higher you stand. From a certain assembly height the instruction prescribes stabilisers, which widen the base at the bottom. For work along a facade, tying in is added, which secures the tower to the building. How high you can go before either is needed is stated in the assembly instruction for that model.

The ground does the rest. Paving, concrete and asphalt are suitable, while grass and sand give way under wheel pressure and call for base pads that spread the load. If the ground is not level, you level the tower before building higher, not afterwards. Uneven ground and stabilising and tying in cover those situations in detail. Under the wheels you use the base pads supplied, not a loose plank or a stack of bricks.

A room scaffold is not the model to take on those outdoor jobs with. It is low, light and made for a flat indoor floor, not for wind and a sloping driveway. If you only need to do something outside at limited height, look at a MiTower instead, which reaches six metres working height and is meant for one person. For higher outdoor work you end up with the RS51 or the RS52 either way.

The two towers side by side

The table below lists the points on which the choice usually falls. Look mainly at the first two rows, because width and working environment already rule out half the options in practice. The deposits differ considerably, and on a short indoor job that is sometimes a reason to go for the room scaffold deliberately, if it reaches the height you need. The rest of the rows mostly confirm a choice you have already narrowed down.

The amounts in the last two rows are deposits, not hire costs. What the hire itself comes to depends on model, height and number of days, and the configurator on prices works that out for you. The build up per model is set out on room scaffold hire costs and mobile scaffold hire costs. The deposit itself comes back in full after return, as long as the parts are complete and undamaged.

Transport, delivery and collecting yourself

Order before 15:00 and the scaffold is at your door the next working day, wherever you are in the Netherlands. Delivery and collection together sit in a fixed amount per province, so you know the cost of the trip in advance and no mileage bill follows afterwards. The amounts per province are on delivery costs, with the explanation under the cost of having a scaffold delivered.

You can also collect free of charge and by appointment at Zeeburgerpad 89 in Amsterdam. For a room scaffold that is often manageable, for a tall mobile scaffold you need serious load space: the platforms alone are 245 centimetres long. If you have no trailer available, read hiring without a trailer before booking a collection slot. Book that slot in good time, then the complete set is ready for you on arrival.

Deposit and hire days: where they differ

The deposit differs sharply between the two towers. On delivery you pay 500 euro for an RS51, an RS52 or a MiTower, and 150 euro for the room scaffold. If you collect yourself it is 1000 euro for the RS51 and RS52, 750 euro for the MiTower and again 150 euro for the room scaffold. After return the amount is back in your account within one working day.

Hire days are counted the same way for both. The first day is charged at the full daily rate, every following day costs 5 percent of that daily rate. A job that runs from three days to six therefore barely gets more expensive, so plan in a margin. More about that build up is on the deposit for hiring a scaffold and how many days to hire a scaffold.

Settling the choice when you are still unsure

Check three things and the choice is almost always made. Are you working indoors or outdoors, how high is the point your hands have to reach, and what is the narrowest opening on the route to the work area. If indoors you go above the height a room scaffold reaches, or you have to be on a facade, the mobile scaffold is the answer. If you stay at ceiling height indoors, the room scaffold is quicker and cheaper on transport and deposit.

If your job sits right on the line, send a photo of the room or the facade via WhatsApp, along with the height you think you need. We can usually tell at a glance which model fits. If you would rather read on yourself, the other guides are in the knowledge base and the practical questions are answered on frequently asked questions.