Deposit for hiring a scaffold

What the deposit is and why we ask for it

The deposit is an amount you pay up front and get back when the hire ends. It is not rent and it is not insurance. It is security that the equipment comes back complete and undamaged, and it is the only amount in the whole hire that travels back in your direction.

We hire out Altrex equipment to EN 1004, load class 3, which is 200 kg per square metre. A scaffold does not arrive as one finished unit but as a set of loose parts: frames, braces, platforms with a hatch, guardrails, toe boards, wheels and stabilisers. You build it yourself using the manual and the instruction video. That works well, but it also means dozens of separate parts are lying around your site during the job. The deposit covers the risk that one of them does not come back.

The deposit says nothing about how much we trust you as a customer. The amount is the same for everyone, private or business, one day or one month.

Deposit amounts per model

Which amount you pay depends on two things: which model you hire, and whether we deliver it or you collect it yourself.

The deposit is a one-off. It is not tied to the number of hire days, so you pay the same whether you keep the scaffold for two days or four weeks. The build height makes no difference either: an RS51 built up to 14.2 metres of working height carries the same deposit as the same scaffold at 6 metres.

The room scaffold stands out with a lower amount, and that amount is the same for delivery and collection. The RS44 is a compact indoor tower that fits through a standard interior door from about 70 cm, with correspondingly fewer and smaller parts in the set. What hiring that model costs is set out on room scaffold hire costs.

Why the deposit is higher when you collect yourself

Collecting is free, by appointment, at Zeeburgerpad 89 in Amsterdam. You then pay no delivery charge, but you do pay a higher deposit.

The difference comes down to who has the equipment in hand. If we deliver, we drop the set off ourselves and we pick it up ourselves. We see what comes off the van and what goes back on, and the transport is our responsibility. If you collect, the whole set goes into your van or onto your trailer, you load and unload it yourself, and we do not see the equipment again until you bring it back. Everything that happens in between is out of our sight, and the higher deposit covers that.

For the RS51 and the RS52 the collection deposit is €1.000 instead of €500. For the MiTower it is €750. Also count on needing real loading space for a complete set, even for a narrow scaffold; what that involves is explained in transporting a scaffold.

When the deposit has to be paid

The deposit runs along with the hire payment. The full amount, hire plus any delivery charge plus deposit, has to reach us at the latest one day before the delivery day. Without payment the equipment does not go on the van and the booking stays on hold.

That is exactly where urgent jobs come unstuck. Order before 15:00 and we deliver the next working day, anywhere in the Netherlands, but you only make that slot if the transfer goes out the same day. On a rush job it is the first thing we ask about; see also hiring a scaffold at short notice.

Business hire with a VAT invoice is possible. Mention it when you order and it goes on the invoice straight away.

How and when you get the deposit back

The deposit goes back within one working day of return, to the account the payment came from. Return means the moment our driver takes the equipment away, or the moment you hand it in yourself at Zeeburgerpad.

You do not have to apply for it and there is no inspection procedure that drags on for weeks. The set is counted and looked over on arrival, and then the money goes back. If everything is there, the full amount comes back. If something is not right, you hear before the refund what is missing or broken and what it costs, so you know which amount to expect.

A working day is an ordinary weekday. Hand the scaffold in on a Friday afternoon and Monday is the day the money moves. More about that timeline is set out in getting your scaffold deposit back.

Missing or damaged parts

Only what is genuinely missing or broken is charged. It is not all or nothing: if one brace is missing, that brace is deducted and the rest of the deposit comes straight back to you.

In practice these are the parts it comes down to:

• Braces, toe boards and stabilisers, the small loose parts most often left behind on site.
• Wheels with a brake, still standing loose in the garden or the hallway after dismantling.
• Platforms with a hatch, where the hatch or its hinge can be damaged.
• Guardrails bent out of shape because something drove or fell into them.
• Parts covered in paint, cement or adhesive that cannot be cleaned off again.

How to get the whole deposit back

By far the most deductions are not caused by damage but by parts that stayed behind. A few habits during the job take care of almost all of it.

If you would rather work through a fixed list before you start, the scaffold hire checklist covers it.

• Count what arrives at delivery and keep the packing list to hand until the end.
• Put small parts back with the frames right after dismantling, not down on the work itself.
• Break the tower down the day before collection, not in the last quarter of an hour.
• Stack everything in one spot that can be reached from the street, even if you worked round the back.
• Cover parts up if you are spraying, pointing or painting.
• Report it yourself if something got damaged, so you know in advance where you stand.

Deposit and hire price are two separate amounts

On the invoice the hire, the delivery charge and the deposit are listed separately. Only the first two are real costs. The deposit is money you advance and that should be back with you afterwards, so leave it out when you work out what a job costs.

What the hire itself costs per model is set out at mobile scaffold hire costs and MiTower hire costs. Those pages also explain how the build-up works: the first hire day is the full rate and every following day costs 5 percent of that daily rate. An overview of all the amounts together is on the pricing page.