Fitting an aerial? Choose the right scaffold.

For this work you pick the Altrex RS TOWER 52, the wide build measuring 135 cm, whose reach runs on to 14.2 metres. That width is not excess here: you lay a mast of a metre and a half across the deck, you keep a corner free for the cable drum and there is space for a second person to hold the bracket while you turn. What else there is to hire is set out in the range with all the builds.

The deck is 245 cm long, and that is exactly why you do not have to reach here. An aerial often sits just beside a chimney or against a gable end, so you want to step sideways without moving the whole setup. On a narrower deck you stand with your tool bag between your feet, and that does not work when you are busy with both hands for an hour. Room around you is literally calm on this job.

The narrow RS51 at 75 cm stays an option when the wall is reachable only through an alley or a gate. You give up working room and will have to go down for tools more often. A room scaffold like the RS44 is not in play here, since it passes an interior door from roughly 70 cm and tops out at 3 to 4 metres. You hire that model for indoor work, not for a point under the roof edge.

Your highest working point is not the top of the mast but the top bracket you still have to tighten. On a house of three storeys that bracket usually sits between seven and ten metres, so you hire a reach of 8 to 12 metres. To convert that working height into a build, take the height of your deck and add another 2 metres of reach. Your platform therefore ends up between 6 and 10 metres above the street.

Measure from the street level where the wheels will actually stand, and watch carefully whether the pavement falls away towards the gutter. If a roof overhang projects beyond the wall, you have to stand further back from the brickwork and need extra height to get in underneath. So measure that depth before you choose a build. For the heights that belong to such a wall, look at the page about ten metres of working height.

Hiring too tight works out badly here, because when aiming you want to stand still and upright. Half a metre short and you are working with stretched arms above your head while trying to turn the mast a few degrees, and that is exactly when you lose the feel for its position. Take the build above it instead, so you stand straight. How high a wall point sits on that storey you see at the third floor.

The setup goes straight under the place where the brackets will sit, because reaching sideways while you aim does not work. With an aerial that is usually at the front of the house, so you stand on the pavement, the drive or in the front garden. Block paving and concrete are a fine base, provided they lie level. If a sunken slab or a manhole cover sits under one of the feet, lay a levelling plate over it before you build any higher.

Around the base there must be room for the four stabilisers, and on a build heading for twelve metres those stand well out. On the street that means allowing for parked cars, a lamp post, the wheelie bins and the footway that pedestrians use. Keep that path clear and ask the council what is allowed in your street if the setup partly occupies the pavement. Some councils want a notification, others only a free passage.

Then look up before you build. With an aerial you are close to the roof edge, and a connection cable or a neighbour's support bracket sometimes runs there. Decide at the same time where the coaxial cable goes inside, because that route decides which side of the wall your setup stands on most conveniently. A position you have to shift after drilling costs you half a day. What a tall build involves is in the piece on anchoring.

The fitting itself costs half a day to a whole day. Marking and tightening brackets, placing the mast, feeding the cable through and sealing it is straightforward work from one position. Aiming is the unknown in your planning. With a dish it is about degrees and with an ordinary aerial about the best position, and as long as the picture indoors is not right you climb up and down. Two to three rental days is therefore sensible planning.

There are waiting moments in it you do not control. Somebody has to watch indoors, and that person has a diary too. If the installer or the cable company comes to tune it, the setup has to be still standing. And then there is the weather, because in strong wind you cannot hold a mast still and you are better off not climbing. Each of those three can cost you a day, and in practice they like to stack up.

Adding those days costs little. Only day one counts in full in the rate, and from day two you settle with 95% off, so reserving two extra days barely weighs on the total you pay. What does cost money is dismantling and building again later because the signal disappointed after all. Put your collection date behind the day you are sure the picture is right. More on estimating is in the piece about rental days.

On this job you almost never move the setup. You put the tower down properly once and finish the whole fitting there, which means that single spot has to be right straight away. Mark the bracket holes while you are already standing on the deck, check that you reach both the lower and the upper bracket comfortably, and correct the position before you start drilling. Half a metre of difference you feel an hour later in your shoulders.

Take up in one go what you need: drill, spanners, a compass or aiming app, cable ties, sealant and the coaxial cable on a drum. The mast itself you pull up on a line, or have somebody pass it to you, because climbing the internal stair with a tube under your arm asks for trouble. Tie it loosely to the guardrail up there so it cannot roll away. Lay a cloth down so nuts and drill bits do not fall through onto the pavement.

Aiming is best done with a phone line to the person indoors, so you do not have to keep going down. Turn the mast in small steps and only tighten it fully when the picture stays stable. Then work along the cable: a drip loop under the duct, the duct sealed watertight and the cable neatly fixed along the mast. If you are also fitting a dish on the same wall, plan it inside the same rental period.

You get a set of loose parts, complete and counted, delivered to the address you give. On a build heading for twelve metres that is a considerable stack, so choose in advance a place where it can lie without blocking the footway. Push the booking through on a working day before it is 15:00 and everything is there the next working day. That helps when your appointment with the installer or the cable company has only just been fixed.

The date of arrival and the date of departure are both filled in by you. For this job the day before your fitting is the most logical, so you can build calmly and start aiming with a rested eye. The build is your work. With two people you go up layer by layer, with the manual and the instruction video close by. At this height it helps to read the step by step build guide beforehand.

Once everything stands and the picture works, you dismantle the setup and lay the parts together, and collecting is ours. Only do that when the signal has really been tested, because an aerial that still needs turning a few degrees has simply become unreachable without a tower. Count the parts while you take it down, so nothing stays behind in the front garden. What the transport costs in your province you read on the page with delivery charges per province.

You are standing on material that meets EN 1004 and falls in load class 3, with 200 kg allowed per square metre of deck. On aerial work you rarely approach that, but do add up what goes along, because two people, a mast, a cable drum and a tool box come further than you think. Put heavy things in the middle of the platform and not all on the side where you stand. What that class means exactly is in the explanation of the standard.

Wind is the deciding factor on this job. A dish or an aerial cross catches it like a sail, and at ten metres there is always more of it than at street level. Stop in strong wind, even when the setup stands firm. Otherwise the fixed rules apply: lock the wheels before you take the first step, never move the setup while somebody or something is on it, and walk round all four stabilisers again after every correction.

Because you stand in one place for so long, something else creeps in, and that is leaning. Do not hang over the guardrail to gain those last centimetres, but set the tower down properly one more time. Keep the pavement below you clear as well, because a spanner falling ten metres lands on a walking route. Put a cone or a length of tape there, certainly if the path runs past a school or a bus stop. The rest is in the article on working safely at height.