Painting timber cladding? Choose the right scaffold.

For cladding across two storeys you hire the Altrex RS51, a tower only 75 cm wide. That width is not a compromise here, it is a condition. Timber boarding usually sits on a side elevation, in a gable or round the back, and you reach those places through a gate, a garden door or a path between two hedges. If the tower will not pass, your job starts with unscrewing a fence panel. The range of mobile scaffolds available to hire puts the models side by side.

On the platform those 75 cm suit brushwork better than you would expect beforehand. You stand facing the boards, the tin sits beside your foot and the roller with its handle leans against the guard rail. What counts is not the width but the platform length of 245 cm, because that is the run of cladding you finish before you climb down again. A wider deck changes nothing about that and simply gives you more parts to lug round to the back.

The wide RS52 at 135 cm is the one to rent when two of you work the same face, one sanding and one painting, or when replacement boards and tools have to go up alongside the paint. If the cladding is indoors, along a void or in a hallway, look instead at the RS44 room scaffold, which passes through an internal door from about 70 cm. Which size suits where is lined up in the overview of mobile scaffold dimensions.

The top board of the cladding is your highest point, up where the timber closes against the fascia or the gutter brackets. On an elevation of two storeys that puts you at a working height between 6 and 8 metres. Working height here means the height of your deck with the reach of your arms added, roughly 2 metres, so a top board at seven metres goes with a deck around five. Which build belongs to that is described under a working height of 8 metres.

Measure from the ground the wheels will stand on, not from your back doorstep. If the lawn lies a step lower than the terrace, the whole build drops with it and you need one platform height more on the garden side. Look as well at whether an overhang projects above the cladding, because reaching back at an angle costs you part of your reach. Check that on a quiet evening, not on the morning of the delivery.

Renting too short shows up straight away on the top row of boards. You paint with your arms stretched above your head, you can no longer see the seam you are working into, and the roller leaves streaks that will not polish out later. On top of that you still have to add a build for that last half metre, and that costs you half a day. Between two reaches on a two storey elevation, look at what a working position on the first floor asks for and take the roomier one.

Boarding is rarely on the street side, so your standing place is almost always a garden, a path or a strip beside an extension. You need flat, load bearing ground under all four wheels plus a margin around it for the stabilisers that splay outwards. On paving or a driveway that comes free; on a lawn that softens after a shower it does not. Lay stout planks or slabs under the wheels and check again at every position that the tower is upright.

Walk the strip along the elevation before you order the scaffold and clear away what is going to be in your way. With cladding those are familiar faces: a water butt under the downpipe, a low hedge against the timber, outside taps, planters, decking with a raised edge and the neighbour's branch hanging at exactly deck height. For a garden that falls away towards the back, the approach is in the piece on levelling on uneven ground.

Think about what happens below you while you paint, too. A drop of gloss falling from seven metres does not come straight down, so sheet the paving, the garden furniture and the neighbour's car before the first coat goes on. If part of the build stands on council land, ask the local authority what is permitted there and keep a way past for people on foot. You want that settled before the mobile scaffold is delivered, not on the morning you mean to start.

Brushwork on timber is a job of days, not of hours. You begin with cleaning and sanding, you spot prime loose knots and bare patches, you seal the seams where that is needed, and only then do two coats of gloss go over the top. Every coat means walking the whole elevation again, in the same positions as the time before. On two storeys the counter reaches four to six rental days easily, and boarding that runs round the house pushes it further.

Between those coats sits waiting time you cannot claw back. Paint on timber needs its overcoating interval before the next layer is allowed on, and that schedule is printed on the tin you are using. The weather comes on top: you do not paint in rain, or in full sun on a dark elevation, or when it is going to freeze tonight. Plan on the day the timber is genuinely finished rather than the day you optimistically pencilled in, with a morning added for taking the tower down.

The way the rental price is built makes booking generously easy. Day one is charged in full and each following rental day comes at 95% off, so a painting week of six days works out far cheaper than six separate hires. Book too tight and you stand with half an elevation in primer, waiting until a tower is free again, and that costs you a week. Work a longer job through with the explanation of rental periods.

With a deck of 245 cm you finish a run of boarding a good two metres wide from each position, over the full height that platform gives you. Finish that run completely before you do anything else: first the seams and the bottom edges with the brush, then the face with the roller, and always through to an end grain or a corner profile. The join between two positions then falls on a line that is there anyway, instead of in the middle of a board.

You reposition with empty hands. Put the tin on the ground, hang the brush in the bucket and climb down before you roll the tower, because it may not move with materials or a person on it. On eight metres of boarding you end up at three or four stands per coat, and under a sloping gable a narrower stand comes on top of that. Over two coats that runs up to something like fifteen repositions.

Take up in one go what you need up there: the tin, a brush, a roller on a short handle, abrasive paper, a cloth and tape. Everything you forget costs you a trip down and back up, and that is exactly where the time goes. Hang a small bucket on the guard rail for oddments and keep a second brush ready in case one dries out. If you take in the painting of the fascia boards as well, add half an hour per position.

You do not get the scaffold assembled; it arrives as a set of loose, counted parts. Work out before the delivery day where that stack is going to land, because you need the strip along the cladding yourself and tubes on the lawn leave a brown print a week later that does not disappear quickly. The driveway or a corner of the terrace works well. Order before 15:00 on a working day and everything stands at your door the next working day.

The delivery date and the collection date are yours to name, and for gloss work you check the forecast for that week first. Have it dropped at the start of a dry spell and plan the build for the day before your first coat, so you can put the tower up calmly and start sanding straight away. Building it is your own work, with two of you, the paper manual beside you and the video to hand. The order the parts go up in is in the step by step build guide.

Collecting is possible too: by appointment the complete set is ready free of charge at Zeeburgerpad 89 in Amsterdam, as long as your van or trailer can take the parts. Once the last coat is hard you take the tower down and we drive it away; all you do is make sure everything stands together, complete and reachable, on the date you gave us. What bringing and fetching cost together per province is shown with the rates for delivery.

Under EN 1004 the deck beneath your boots falls in load class 3, which allows 200 kg per square metre, and on this job you get closer to that than you would think. Two tins of gloss, a bucket of water, a tool box and somebody sanding beside you add up fast. Spread what you carry up over the length of the deck instead of setting it all down in the corner by the hatch. What that class further involves is set out in the explanation of this scaffold standard.

The standing rules apply on a quiet painting day as well. Brake all four wheels before you put a foot on the first rung, leave nobody and nothing on the deck when the tower has to travel, and stop work as soon as the wind gets up. Go round the stabilisers again after every move and tighten them properly, even if you only went a metre sideways. It is precisely on those short moves that people skip the check and the tower ends up leaning on a kerb edge.

The risk that belongs to this work is spilt paint. A drop of gloss on an aluminium deck is treacherous and will not dry away while you stand working, so put cardboard down and wipe up at once what you spill. Keep the zone under the tower clear of children and pets, because a tin coming off the guard rail lands hard. What else applies is listed under the ground rules for working at height.