Spray-painting panelling? Choose the right scaffold.

With boarding across two storeys the choice falls on the RS51, the narrow Altrex version with a tower width of 75 cm. On this job that measurement counts twice over. You first have to reach the spot with it, usually along a side path or through a gate, and after that you want the stand set close in against the face. The narrower the tower, the shorter the gap between your shoulder and the board. Which versions are otherwise ready to go is shown in the choice of mobile scaffolds for hire.

Up on the platform you have less around you than a painter does. A gun, a cloth, some tape and a roll of masking paper is the lot, and that is precisely why 75 cm of width does not let you down here. The measurement that governs your planning is the platform length of 245 cm: that is the strip of panelling you can finish from one stand without moving your feet. Anything falling outside it means climbing down, rolling along and levelling up again.

The wide RS52 at 135 cm comes into view when somebody walks with you to mask up while you carry on, or when boards have to be replaced first so timber and tools go up as well. Is the panelling indoors, along a stairwell or under a sloping roof, then the RS44 room scaffold is your model, since it passes an internal door from about 70 cm. The widths are set against each other in the difference between a mobile scaffold and a room scaffold.

Your highest point here is not the gutter but the top board of the panelling, and above all the bottom edge that runs away beneath it. If that row sits at seven metres, you hire a reach of 6 to 8 metres. The figure you give us is the working height: your deck height plus roughly 2 metres of reach. When spraying you use only half that reach, because you want the board in front of you rather than over your head. So count on a deck standing higher than it would for brushwork.

Measure from the ground the wheels are going to rest on. If the tower stands in a sunken garden or on a terrace below the level of your front door, everything shifts down with it and one build extra is needed. Look at the roof overhang as well: where that projects far over the panelling you cannot get square in front of the top row and have to drop a little lower instead. The page on working heights and builds shows how the series runs.

Renting too tight tells on the top two rows of boards. You aim upwards at an angle, the bottom edges stay thin and the seams never close, and you notice it only once the face is dry and the light strikes it differently. Going over it again helps only partly, because the start line stays visible. One build more costs you half an hour of levelling; redoing that row costs a day. In doubt about a face on the second floor, take the roomier reach.

Panelling often sits on a gable end, above an extension or on the garden side, and there the ground is seldom as even as it is on the street. You want bearing capacity under all four wheels and space around them for the stabilisers you splay out. Where there is grass or gravel, put slabs or thick planks down so the wheels cannot sink away once you are up top. Check at every new stand that the tower is plumb, because leaning tells at once in your distance to the face.

On this job there is sheeting or masking paper on the ground, and that clashes with a tower on wheels. Only tape the covering down once you know where the wheels land in each stand, and leave a patch free around every wheel position. Then walk the strip along the panelling and take away what will be in the way: garden furniture, a compost bin, the outside tap, a low shed against the wall and branches hanging to deck height. Taking up an uneven base is covered in levelling on an uneven surface.

Think about the route from stand to stand when you choose your standing place. On this work you shift the tower more often than you would expect, each time a short way along the panelling, and that only runs smoothly when the whole strip is clear. An obstacle halfway forces you to break the stand down or to skip a stretch you then have to come back to. So walk the elevation once in your head before you reserve the mobile scaffold.

The spraying itself goes quickly, but the number of stands decides your day. Each stand has to be levelled, braked, stabilised and brought to the right height again, and every time that takes a quarter of an hour to twenty minutes. Masking comes on top of it: frames, gutter, terrace and planting. For an elevation of two storeys that brings you out at three to four rental days, and with panelling on more than one side of the house it runs towards a week.

Within those days sit hours when the work stands still. Between two coats the face has to cure, and how long that takes is printed on the packaging of the material you chose. The weather counts as well: with rain on fresh work, or an elevation baking in full sun, you are better off waiting. So do not put your end date on the day of the final coat but a day later, so that you can dismantle without hurrying.

Planning generously costs you little, because only the opening 24 hours are billed in full. Each rental day after that goes with 95% off, so a spare day held back for bad weather barely registers in your budget. Booking too tight works the other way about: half the panelling still stands in its first coat while the van is already pulling up. For a larger job, work the period through with the explanation of rental days.

From one stand you finish a strip of panelling 245 cm wide, and within that strip the order of work decides everything. Take the bottom edges and the seams first, where you aim the gun up at an angle from underneath, and only then lay in the face of the boards. Do it the other way round and you go over a coat you have only just laid, so the edges build up thicker than the rest. Close every stand at an end grain or a corner profile.

On this work you shift not only sideways but in height as well. To stand square in front of the top rows you hang the platform a level higher, work the elevation right along at that height and then drop back down again. On an elevation eight metres wide and two storeys high you reach six to eight stands per coat, against three or four with a brush. Work those stands out on paper first, because they decide how many days you hire the scaffold.

What you carry up is limited, but forget nothing. The gun, a clean cloth, tape, a spare roll of masking paper and a lamp for the shadow under the boards. Without light you simply cannot see the bottom edge from a metre away. How often you still end up going down is systematically underestimated: every forgotten roll of tape is a stand you do twice. Take in the window frames from those same stands and add time for it.

The set reaches you as loose tubes, braces and platforms, counted and complete, and not as a standing tower. Pick a place for that stack beforehand that you will not need during the job, because the strip along the panelling and the ground beneath it both go under sheeting. A driveway or a corner of the terrace is usually the best spot. Whatever is ordered before 15:00 on a working day gets dropped with you on the next working day.

The delivery day and the collection day are yours to give, and for spray work you make them fall in a dry spell. It pays to have it dropped the day before your first coat: then you build calmly and use the rest of that day for masking. Building is your task and not ours; with two of you and the instruction video to hand the tower is standing in a couple of hours. The sequence is set out in the build plan.

Collecting is possible as well: you make an appointment and take the parts from Zeeburgerpad 89 in Amsterdam, if your transport can carry them. Have it brought instead and a fixed amount per province covers bringing and fetching together, which you find with the cost of delivery. Once the final face has hardened you dismantle the tower yourself and we take it away again, so leave the parts standing together where the driver can reach them.

What may stand on the platform is fixed in EN 1004: load class 3 comes down to 200 kg per square metre. On this job you seldom get near it, because you have little with you. If you are replacing boards first, though, or somebody climbs up to mask alongside you, add it all together before you step on. What the class involves is set out in the explanation of loading and weight, along with why that limit exists.

The basic rules do not soften because the job looks small. Lock the wheels before anyone puts a foot on the first rung, never let the tower travel with tools or a person aboard, and stop when the wind picks up. On a narrow tower with your arm outstretched you lose balance sooner than with a brush in your hand, so that threshold sits lower here than you are used to. Check the stabilisers after every move and tighten them firmly again.

The danger that belongs to this job is the deck under your feet. Everything that misses the face lands on your platform too, and aluminium with a film of material on it is slippery. Cover the deck with cardboard and change it as soon as it starts to shine. Watch loose sheeting as well: a sheet that lifts and wraps round a guard rail tugs your arm at the wrong moment. Otherwise the usual rules for working at height apply.