Hire a mobile scaffold in Zuid-Holland

Crowded land on a wet subsoil

Zuid-Holland fits more people into less space than anywhere else in the country, and that pressure shows in the buildings: long continuous terraces, a great deal of stacked housing and very few facades you can walk freely around. At the same time almost everything stands on clay or peat, in polders that count among the deepest in the Netherlands. Wet, soft and full is the starting point for every job here.

The consequences are practical. Where a detached house raises the question of how high you need to go, the question here is usually how to get in and where the thing can stand. Standing room is the scarce commodity, so the dimensions of the equipment weigh more heavily than the maximum working height on paper. A three storey building is quickly reached; manoeuvring alongside it is the real work.

Portico and gallery blocks outside the big cities

The smaller towns and the outer municipalities hold an enormous stock of portico and gallery flats from the fifties through to the seventies, mostly three to five storeys high. There is always something to do on those blocks: balcony railings, concrete edges, window frames and pointing. The working heights involved sit in the middle of what the RS51 and RS52 cover, well below the maximum of 14.2 metres.

Around such blocks you often find a strip of grass or a parking bay rather than hard standing right up to the facade. On grass or a semi-paved strip the adjustable feet sink the moment someone steps onto the platform. Base plates are not a luxury there, and it pays to decide where the equipment will stand before it is delivered. Managers who do this regularly fix that spot in the work agreement in advance.

The Westland and the horticultural districts

Behind the coast lies an unbroken belt of glasshouse horticulture, with company buildings, sheds and works housing that keep a maintenance rhythm of their own. Business facades, tall doors, equipment tucked under a roof edge and lighting inside a shed all mean working at height in spaces where there is usually plenty of room to set out properly. The solid floors inside such a building are flat and carry the load well.

For short indoor jobs in a commercial building the MiTower often works out well. It is a one person tower with a working height of up to six metres, light enough to move on your own and quick to build. For longer stretches along a tall facade a rolling set-up is more comfortable: a platform length of 245 centimetres covers a bigger section of wall from each position.

The islands and the delta: open water, plenty of wind

The south west of the province is made up of former islands between wide stretches of water. Shelter from surrounding buildings falls away there and the wind hits the facade almost unhindered. In such places wind strength, not the size of the job, decides how the day is planned. Work at the upper platform heights is better postponed to the following morning than pushed through while it is blowing hard.

Dyke ribbons, farms and the river country

In the east and south east of the province the buildings run in ribbons along the dykes, with houses that sit against the embankment on one side and come out a full storey lower on the other. That difference in level means a tower stands almost flat along one elevation while the adjustable feet have to be wound a long way out on the other to bring the same platform level.

The farms and barns in the peat meadow areas add long facades and large roof planes. Replacing a gutter or painting a wall there means shifting a tower dozens of times in a day. A model that rolls easily across a flat yard then beats one that reaches higher on paper but has to be levelled again at every stop. On paved ground a move takes seconds; on grass the same metre costs considerably more effort.

Historic centres with narrow streets

Beyond the big cities this province holds dozens of old centres with tight alleys, pavements and houses that start right on the building line. Usually only the narrow RS51 at 75 centimetres wide will fit, and now and then even that is too much and the work moves indoors. The room scaffold is made for exactly that, going through an internal doorway from roughly 70 centimetres.

When working on the street side of these buildings the standing spot is almost always the deciding factor. A quick check beforehand, covering the width of the pavement and whether a car is usually parked at the door, prevents the equipment sitting there while nobody can work. On a through road that bit of homework is worth twice the trouble it takes.

Short distance, busy roads

Zuid-Holland borders our own province and lies close to the warehouse, but it is also the part of the country with the heaviest traffic. For planning purposes a generous time window is more realistic than an exact hour. Order before three in the afternoon on a working day and the tower is on site the next working day, including at the southern tip of the province.

For those it suits, collection by appointment is an alternative: that is free of charge at our warehouse at Zeeburgerpad 89 in Amsterdam. The deposit is higher when you collect than when we deliver, and once the equipment is handed back it is returned within one working day. The hire structure is the same everywhere: the first twenty four hours count as a full day, and every day after that carries 95 percent off.

The maintenance that comes back most often here

Three things stand out. First, painting the frames and fascias of post-war terraces, where timber and concrete alternate. Second, the gutters and rainwater downpipes of stacked housing, which take a heavier load than a single family house because of the roof area feeding them. Third, cleaning north facing facades, where in this damp climate it is rarely dry long enough to keep growth away.

In owners' association blocks that work is usually tackled for the whole building at once, so equipment stands on site for a stretch of days. The hire structure works in your favour there, since every day after the first is heavily reduced. Building it is your own job: the tower arrives in parts with a manual and an instruction video, so you put it up where and when it suits you.