Painting a balustrade? Choose the right scaffold.

For paintwork on a continuous balustrade you hire the Altrex RS51, the version measuring 75 cm across. What matters most on this job is how easily the pitch shifts along, because you will move it dozens of times. A narrow foot rolls over a gallery path, past a parking strip or along a paved walk without closing the whole passage, and that saves an argument with residents and bicycles at every stage. The complete range, widths included, sits with the towers we hire out.

Up on the deck you need very little here: a tin, two brushes or a small roller, abrasive paper and a rag. All of that fits easily on a floor of 75 by 245 cm. More to the point, those 245 cm set the length of balustrade you finish from each standing place, and that is the figure you cost the job with. A balustrade of thirty metres works out at twelve standing places per coat, which tells you more about your hire period than the height of the gallery does.

The broader RS52 at 135 cm only makes sense if two of you stand on the deck together. Against that, a wide pitch rolls heavily and more often cannot get past something, which stings by the tenth move. Small inconveniences are what add up on this job: a standing place where you have to manoeuvre costs minutes you pay twelve times over per coat. Unsure about the size? Hold the narrowest point of your route against the figures in the overview of tower dimensions.

At a balustrade you measure to the top of the handrail, because nothing above that is in your work. On a gallery or a row of balconies at first floor level that handrail sits at about four metres, on the second level at about six, and 6 to 8 metres of working height belongs with those. That number is made up of the height of the deck with the reach of someone standing upright added on top, roughly 2 metres. The page on eight metres of working height shows how that build comes together.

For paintwork you want the deck just under the handrail, so the whole railing stands in front of you and you can draw the brush out with a steady hand. Do not measure at one point, but over the whole route. A gallery is level, yet the path beneath it almost always falls away towards a gully or a driveway, and at the end of the building you are half a metre lower than where you started. Take the lowest point of your route as the basis, or you will come up short there.

Hire too tight and you see it in the finish. Paint laid on with straight arms above your head runs unevenly and pulls streaks, and over thirty metres of balustrade that difference shows from a long way off. If you can no longer work the top rail properly you skip it and you have to come back later anyway. Take the roomier size straight away, certainly when the upper run sits at the third floor.

At a balustrade you do not choose a standing place, you choose a route. Walk that route before you hire anything, tape measure in hand, and look at where the pitch is actually going to stand. You are after an unbroken strip along the building where the castors can roll and where the stabilisers can come out on both sides. What works fine at the first standing place can come unstuck ten metres further on at a sunken terrace or a low wall.

The obstacles on this job are fairly predictable. Lamp posts, cycle racks, rainwater downpipes, drain covers, parked cars, a border full of shrubs or a sunken basement window: each of them forces a detour or leaves a gap in your route. Where there is a parking strip, arrange in good time that the bays along your elevation stay free on those days. Mark the trouble spots before you book, so you know in advance where the gap falls. On soft or sloping ground, see how to catch that in working on an uneven surface.

Think of the people living along your route as well. A gallery block has one walkway, and for a few days you are using it as a work site. Pin a note at the entrance with the days you will be busy, and leave a way past at every standing place for residents with shopping or a bicycle. That costs you half a metre of pitch and buys you a quiet week. What else such a building brings with it is at scaffolding at an apartment building.

With a balustrade you count in passes, not in square metres. You go over the full length at least three times: once rubbing down and degreasing, once for the bonding coat and once for the finishing coat. Every pass consists of a series of standing places, and at each of them minutes disappear into brakes, stabilisers and setting your things out again. For thirty metres of balustrade you therefore hire a tower for five to seven days, and on a gallery of two levels that climbs further.

Then there is the weather. A finishing coat wants a dry surface, no rain in the forecast and no fierce sun to make the paint pull, and that combination is not handed to you every day. A balustrade caught by rain halfway through the final coat costs you more than one extra day: that stretch has to be done again. So keep two spare days in the plan, and start the final coat only if you can reach the end of the route the same day.

When booking, that slack works in your favour. The whole rate applies to the first twenty four hours only; on each further day of your hire period ninety five per cent comes off, so pinning two extra days behind your planning costs next to nothing. Set the collection day after your last coat rather than on it, because a tower that leaves with five metres still open costs you a second hire period. What a longer booking means is set out in the piece on hiring by the day or by the week.

From each standing place you finish the piece of balustrade that falls within your deck, and no more than that. On a gallery those 245 cm often match the distance between two posts fairly closely, and a post is exactly where you want a joint. Paint on past the end of your deck and you are stretching, and later you will see that spot as a heavier band. Finish the bay completely, bottom rail and back face included, before you climb down.

Rubbing down and finishing are never done from the same pitch on the same day. Dust hangs in the air and goes straight into wet paint, so walk the entire route with abrasive paper first and only then begin again. Wipe the deck and the handrail clean before you open the tin, because a dusty standing place shows up later as a rough patch. For the second pass you drive to exactly the same places, so your joints keep falling on the same posts.

Take up per bay what you will use: a small tin, your brushes and a rag. Clear the deck completely before you roll on, because a tin going over during the move costs you an afternoon of cleaning and part of your deposit. Keep a written note of which bay you have had, since after ten standing places they look alike and one gets skipped. If it is free standing railing rather than a continuous balustrade, see the page on painting railings and fencing.

A full set comes to you, from uprights and decks to braces, guard rails and castors, counted before it leaves. Have the parts unloaded at the start of your route, somewhere they can lie a few hours without blocking an exit. At a gallery block that is often the car park or the grass beside the entrance. If your booking goes in on a working day before 15:00, everything can be lying there the next working day, so planning weeks ahead is not needed.

In the booking you pin both the day the set arrives and the day it may all go again, and with paintwork you let that run with the forecast. If a wet week is coming, move the start rather than stand looking at the sky with a tower already up. Putting it together is your own work, with the manual from the set and the video that demonstrates every step; with two people the first pitch stands well inside half a day. How that goes step by step is shown in the assembly instruction.

You may also fetch the set yourself. It costs nothing, runs by appointment and happens at Zeeburgerpad in Amsterdam, as long as you have transport the longest parts will go into. Once the final coat is on, we drive out again to pick everything up. You take the pitch apart, count the parts and put them somewhere the van can reach them. The rates for each province stand with the costs for delivery and collection.

Load class 3 within EN 1004 is where these towers sit, and that comes down to a bearing capacity of 200 kg per square metre of deck. Painting a balustrade you stay well under it, since you are up there with a tin and a few tools. The danger on this job is in the repetition: anyone moving twelve times a day sooner or later forgets a brake or a stabiliser. Make a fixed round of it at every standing place.

The rules stay the same at every point along the route. The castors are braked the moment somebody steps onto the deck, you roll only with an empty platform and nobody on board, and you do not step off the scaffold onto the gallery to grab something. In strong wind you stop: along a long elevation, or at the head of a gallery, there is more wind than in an enclosed garden, and you notice it only once you are up.

Look downwards on this job as well. Residents walk beneath your route, and a tin or a brush that leaves the deck lands precisely on that path. Stand your tools against the guard rail rather than on the edge, and keep the zone under the pitch clear while you are up there. On a busy gallery a cone or a length of tape below the tower is not an excessive measure. What is arranged around guard rails and edge protection is at fall protection on a mobile scaffold.