Mobile scaffold hire costs

What the bill for a mobile scaffold is made of

Hiring a mobile scaffold from us costs three amounts and nothing beyond them: the hire itself, delivery and collection, and the deposit. The deposit is the only amount that travels back in your direction.

Hire starts at €150 for the lowest build and runs to €325 for the highest. That is the first day at the full rate. Every following day costs 5% of that day rate, so from €8. How that works out over a weekend, a week or longer is set out on the pages about the price per day and the price per week.

Delivery and collection sit together in one fixed amount per province. No kilometres, no call-out charge, no second trip appearing separately on the invoice later. In the core area that is €150, rising to €350 for the furthest provinces; the rates per province are listed separately. Collecting the scaffold yourself at Zeeburgerpad 89 in Amsterdam is free, by appointment.

The deposit is €500 when we deliver and €1.000 when you collect. It is a one-off, it is not tied to the number of hire days and it does not change with build height. You get it back within one working day of return. What it does and does not cover is on the deposit page.

What working height does to the price

The hire price scales with the height you are going to work at. Every step up means extra frames, braces and another platform, and that is what you see back in the day rate. The range runs from 4.2 to 14.2 metres of working height, and the price with it from €150 to €325.

Working height is not the same as platform height. You stand on the platform and reach about two metres above it, so working height is platform height plus 2 metres. Someone replacing a gutter at six metres does not need a platform at six metres but at four.

Always measure from the ground the scaffold will stand on, not from where you are standing now. A garden half a metre below the pavement, a sloping drive, an extension the scaffold has to clear: those are the things that cost you a size afterwards. The working height pages show which build goes with which height.

Hiring too low is not a saving. A scaffold that leaves you just short of the highest point ends with somebody standing on the guardrail, and the job still is not finished. One size up costs less than the second hire period you would otherwise need.

RS51 narrow or RS52 wide, and what that means for the cost

We hire out two mobile scaffolds. The RS51 is 75 cm wide, the RS52 is 135 cm. Otherwise they are the same: both have a platform length of 245 cm, both reach 14.2 metres of working height, and both are Altrex equipment to EN 1004 in load class 3, which is 200 kg per square metre.

In the bill the difference sits in one place: the hire. Delivery and collection cost the same for both models, and the deposit is €500 on delivery and €1.000 on collection for either one. Both models fall inside the range of €150 to €325, with height weighing heavier than width.

Which of the two you take is rarely decided by price and almost always by access to the work. Measure the narrowest gap on the route to the wall: a gate of 80 cm, a path between house and hedge, an alley beside the garage. If the RS52 does not fit through it, the choice is made for you.

Where there is room, the wide version gives more platform to stand on and to keep tools and materials on, which on a long painting job saves trips up and down. Both models and their dimensions are listed on the mobile scaffold hire page.

Building a budget for a specific job

A usable budget takes six steps, and you need nothing for it but a tape measure and a diary.

• Work out the highest point you need to reach, measured from the ground the scaffold will stand on. That is your working height.
• Choose narrow or wide based on the tightest gap to the work, not on the price.
• Count the days you will actually occupy the scaffold, including the day you build it and the day you take it down.
• Put in the hire: the first day at the full rate, every following day at 5% of it.
• Add delivery and collection, €150 in the core area, or nothing if you collect yourself.
• Set the deposit aside, €500 when we deliver. That amount comes back, but it has to sit there in the meantime.

Two examples of how that budget lands

Replacing a gutter at the back of a terraced house, with the scaffold in the garden. Working height around six metres, and the RS51 fits through the gate. You need the Saturday and the Sunday and return it on Monday. That puts roughly €165 of hire on the bill, plus €150 for delivery and collection, plus €500 deposit that comes back within a working day of return.

Painting a whole wall takes more days than people expect, because primer and topcoat both have to dry. Allow a full week there, so roughly €195 of hire at the same delivery amount and the same deposit. The proportions shift: on a one or two day job the delivery is a sizeable part of the total, over a week it disappears next to the hire.

Knowing how many days you need before you order is therefore worth more than haggling over the day rate. Put the days in the diary before you make the booking.

Which choices actually lower the bill

A few levers make a real difference, and a few that people expect to help mostly create hassle.

• Collect it yourself. That takes the whole delivery amount off the bill, €150 to €350. You do need a van or a trailer, and you pay the higher deposit of €1.000.
• Do not hire higher than the job asks for. Work out the platform height you need first and add two metres of reach to it.
• Narrow instead of wide, where the work allows. For painting and sealing along a wall, 75 cm of platform width is enough in most cases.
• Plan the hire days back to back. Two separate periods means paying for delivery and collection twice, which is the amount you were trying to save.
• Have everything ready before the scaffold arrives. Paint, sealant, screws, brushes: every day lost to a run to the builders merchant is a hire day.
• Combine jobs into one period. The gutter, the window frames and the paintwork on the same wall go into one hire instead of three.

What is not on the bill

We do not erect the scaffold and we do not deliver it assembled. It arrives as a set of loose parts and you build it yourself, with the manual and the instruction video. So there are no erection costs on the invoice, but do count the time for building it up and taking it down in your planning.

There is no mileage charge either, and no call-out fee. The delivery amount covers the trip out and the trip back together, even if you keep the scaffold longer than planned. The deposit is not insurance and covers no damage to your work or to the wall, only the equipment itself.

If you hire as a business, we invoice with VAT. For a quote or a question about a specific situation, WhatsApp is quickest; we would rather see a photo of the wall than read a description of it.

When a mobile scaffold is not the cheapest answer

For indoor work a mobile scaffold is often too big. If it has to pass through a standard internal door, the RS44 room scaffold is the logical choice; it fits through a door from about 70 cm and carries a lower deposit. Its costs are on room scaffold hire costs.

If you work alone and stay under six metres of working height, the MiTower is cheaper and quicker to build than a full mobile scaffold. See MiTower hire costs.

Anyone chasing the lowest bill will find the full list of savings in cheap scaffold hire.