Balcony work? Choose the right scaffold.

For balcony work the choice falls on the Altrex RS51, 75 cm across. That narrow base is decisive here, because the pitch has to end up under the slab, where a low garden wall, a border edge or the corner of a shed is usually in the way. The narrower the foot, the closer to the wall beneath the balcony you can bring it. All the widths on offer sit with the mobile scaffolds you rent from us, ready to hold against your own situation.

The platform length of 245 cm is good news for this job. An ordinary balcony slab is three to four metres wide, so a single pitch already puts the greater part of the soffit above you. You shove the tub of mortar or coating along with your feet as you shuffle sideways, which beats climbing down and up again when everything happens overhead. A 135 cm deck adds nothing to that and fits beneath the slab far less often.

The wide RS52 comes into view when two people are under the slab at once, or when you bring in sheet material and props. A room scaffold drops out, because that model is meant for indoor work and never reaches this far. A ladder drops out as well, since balcony work means both hands above your head. What a tower at this kind of structure involves is set out in the piece on scaffolds at balconies and roof terraces.

With the balcony on the first floor, the underside of the slab sits at around three metres and the top of the railing at around four. A working height of 4.2 to 6.2 metres belongs with that, the range in which a narrow tower still stands comfortably. The number you order is not the height of your feet: about 2 metres of reach is added to the height of the deck, and the two together are called working height. What that build looks like is shown on the page for towers reaching 6 metres.

Beneath a balcony slab that sum stops working. You do not reach two metres upwards there, because after half a metre your knuckles meet concrete. For the work under the slab you therefore reckon with the platform height and not with the working height: the deck has to come high enough for you to hold your arms up and still be comfortable. In practice that means renting a set one size larger than the top of the railing would suggest.

Choose too tight and you notice it at once. Standing low under the slab you work with straight arms above your head, your pace drops away and everything runs down your sleeves. If the highest deck position leaves you short of the nosing, you miss exactly the edge that most needs attention. Measure the clear height beneath the balcony beforehand, and if in doubt use the figures for the first floor as your starting point.

Balcony work uses two kinds of pitch. The first stands under the slab, deck just below the concrete, and you need it for the soffit, the outlet and the joint with the wall. The second stands just beside or in front of it, so that the nosing and the railing lie in front of you instead of above you. Count on shifting the whole tower at least once during the job, and keep clear ground available at both places.

That ground has to be level and the stabilisers have to swing out on four sides. Under a balcony that is harder than beside it: there you often find a cycle store, a border, a shed or the very rainwater gully where a foot now has to go. Look at the clear height too, because you build up to just below the concrete and still have to tilt the top parts into place. On loose or falling ground the explanation of stabilising a mobile scaffold helps.

In a block of flats the strip under the balcony is usually communal ground. Tell the manager or the residents committee that a pitch is going up and how many days it stays, certainly where a footpath or a bike store runs past. Ask the neighbour above not to mop the balcony for a while either: whatever goes over the edge lands on your fresh coating. Those arrangements are better made before the tower is delivered than on your first working day.

Balcony work is hardly ever a single operation. You start by cleaning and hacking away loose concrete, you repair the nosing and the drip edge, you make good the soffit, you tackle the railing and finally you check the outlet. Each of those steps asks for its own pitch and its own waiting time. For one balcony you therefore rent a tower for four to five days, and with two balconies above each other you can safely add another two.

The waiting time is in the material, not in you. Repair mortar has to harden before coating can go over it, and a coat on the soffit needs drying while no dust may blow up from below. On top of that, work above your head goes more slowly than you are used to: your arms tire sooner and you cover smaller areas. Plan in half days rather than in hours and your hire period will still be right at the end.

For the booking that turns out well. You pay the full rate only over the first day, and every following day of the hire period has 95 per cent knocked off it, so an extra hardening day weighs almost nothing. What you do feel is a scaffold collected too early while the nosing is not finished. How many days other people allow for this sort of job is set out in the overview with guidance on the length of a hire.

Under the slab you work in strips. With a deck of 245 cm you have a good two metres of soffit above you per pitch, and on an average balcony that is most of it in one go. Finish each strip completely, from the wall out to the nosing, and only then move along. That keeps you on top of what has already been repaired, because seen from below a half treated slab looks finished long before the corners are done.

After that the tower goes outwards, to the pitch alongside. From there you do the nosing, the drip edge and the railing, and the work feels entirely different: you look straight at it and can simply carry on sideways. Save the outlet for the moment you are still standing underneath, because flushing it through is better done before the new coating is in place. Every move costs a quarter of an hour, so set the order down on paper first.

Take up only the material you will use in the next half hour. Working above your head means every surplus comes back on your sleeve or on the deck, and a full bucket does nothing but stand in the way. Safety glasses and a cap are no luxury on this job. If only the railing is going into paint and the slab is left alone, look instead at the page about painting a balcony railing.

A complete set is dropped off, every piece counted: uprights, decks, braces, guard rails and castors. Pick a place for that stack in advance and do not put it under the balcony, because the first pitch belongs there. A drive, a parking bay or the edge of the garden works better and saves you dragging things later. Order on a working day and stay under 15:00, and the delivery can be with you the next working day rather than a day later.

You decide yourself on which day the set arrives and when it goes away again. With balcony work you tie that to the repair sequence: build first, then hack and make good, and only afterwards coat. The assembly is yours to do, with the manual in the set and the video that runs through the steps. Under a balcony, remember that you cannot lift the top parts straight up, so fix your deck height before you begin stacking.

Collection by appointment is possible as well, free of charge, at Zeeburgerpad in Amsterdam; for that you need a vehicle the longest tubes will go into. If you choose to have it brought, we come back for the set when you have finished. You take the pitch apart and lay the parts out complete at the agreed spot. What bringing and fetching costs in your province is listed with the rates for delivery and collection.

The deck you stand on falls in load class 3 within EN 1004, which means every square metre carries 200 kg. With balcony work you come nearer that figure than with painting, because a bucket of repair mortar, a bag of material and two people soon add up. Spread the weight over the deck and do not leave hacked off lumps lying until there is a heap. What the class means in practice is covered in the article on load and weight on a mobile scaffold.

The balcony structure is no part of your tower. You do not fix the pitch to the railing, you do not prop it against the slab and you do not climb over the rail onto the balcony. Brake the castors the moment you step on, and move the scaffold empty: no buckets on the deck and certainly nobody riding along. Walk round all four stabilisers after every move, even when you have gone no more than half a metre.

Here the risks are above you and below you. Hacking and brushing at the soffit brings all sorts of things down, so wear goggles and keep the zone under the deck empty. Warn the people who have to pass, especially at a shared entrance or a bicycle store. And stop in strong wind: under a balcony it feels sheltered, yet on the corner of the building the wind still pulls through. The further arrangements are at the rules on working at height.