Interior work? Choose the right scaffold.

For interior work you end up at the RS44 room scaffold, the indoor model from Altrex. It manages a working height of 3 to 4 metres, which is enough under practically every ceiling in a house, and its base is narrow enough to pass an interior door of some 70 cm. On this kind of job that last point is the real selection criterion, because a tower stuck in the hall is of no use to anybody. The versions on offer appear with the room scaffolds from the rental fleet.

An outdoor model offers no way round it. The RS51 and the RS52 only begin their reach at 4.2 metres, weigh considerably more, and their base wants a clear floor you simply do not have in a hall or a bedroom. A tower like that would also have to be assembled outside, after which you would never get it in through the front door. Where the differences sit is set out in the comparison of a mobile scaffold and a room scaffold.

When booking, think about how often you will pick this thing up. On interior work you build again in every room, so each part passes through your hands several times. A light set you can shift single handed does more for you by the end of the day than an extra square decimetre of deck. Fixed prices including VAT and online booking settle the rest of the choice quickly. Should you continue outdoors later, you can hire a mobile scaffold alongside and keep that booking separate.

The highest point on interior work is nearly always the ceiling, or a fixing point just below it. In a post war house that hangs at 2.6 metres, in a property from around 1900 at 3.5 metres. So reckon on 3 to 4 metres of working height; your deck then sits somewhere at 1 or 2 metres. The last stretch you bridge with your own length: standing on the floor of the room scaffold, a drill in your hand still gets you nearly two metres higher.

Measure per room, because within one house the height varies more than people expect. A lowered ceiling in the kitchen, a step up to the conservatory or a thick underlay in the bedroom shifts your figure by half a metre, and then you are short in the wrong space. Note the largest measurement you come across and book on that, since building lower is always possible. What you have to assemble for it stands on the page about a working height of 4 metres.

Stand too low and you are fiddling with straight arms above your own head at something that has to be exact, and on fixing jobs that goes wrong faster than on rough work. A plug driven into the ceiling at an angle or a rail hanging a centimetre out of true costs you more time than the whole build of the tower, and usually a second hole as well. If your interior work spans a stairwell, look at a set up over a stairwell.

Walk the route through your house once before you order anything, and simply begin at the front door. Measure the width of every opening at its narrowest, so between the handle and the post opposite, and check whether a door swings fully clear. Then comes the hall: is there a bend, does a coat rack stand there, and will the longest tube go round the corner of the stair rail? On interior work the planning trips over the hall more often than over the room you finally have to reach.

After that the thresholds count. A sill between hall and living room, a rise into the extension and a step down to the utility room are each a moment where you take the tower apart or lift it. Reckon on starting again per floor, because an assembled room scaffold does not go up the stairs and will not fit in a lift either. That costs you half an hour each time. If you are unsure about the measurement, the guidance on mobile scaffolds and doorways takes you further.

In the room itself you look at the floor and at what stands on it. Lay hardboard, thin plywood or a tarpaulin under the wheels, because a poured floor or laminate will otherwise pick up pressure marks. Slide furniture towards the middle, take down a pendant light that hangs in your way and leave a clear metre round about for yourself and the stabilisers. A room cleared beforehand saves you half an hour per position, and across a full day of interior work that mounts up.

Interior work is often a collection of small jobs, and that is exactly why the hours mount. Two light fittings, a smoke alarm, a rail and a grille in the bathroom may be three hours of handiwork between them, but with four builds, moves and take downs added on they fill a whole day. Spread that list over the ground floor and the first floor and you are quickly at two to three hire days without having dawdled anywhere.

There are also waiting moments you cannot plan away. Chemical anchor has to cure before you hang anything heavy on it, sealant needs time, and sometimes you are waiting on a second pair of hands or on a fitting still to be delivered. Put those moments at the end of a day in your schedule, and the tower is still standing in exactly the same spot the next morning, with nothing to line up again.

The fact that you may book generously helps with that. The full rate applies to the first twenty four hours and 95 per cent comes off every day thereafter, so a spare day costs you hardly anything. Book too tight and the rail on the landing is still not up when the van is already at the door, and then you are shuffling dates anyway. Better to set your end date a day wide than a day sharp. For a realistic picture, see judging your hire period.

The deck measures 245 cm along its length, and on interior work that is often just enough to cover a whole wall or half a room width without moving. So plan your points per position: the fitting, the alarm and the hole for the cable that fall in the same strip get done one after another. Anyone who moves per job instead of per strip spends half the day pushing wheels about and has depressingly little of the list finished by late afternoon.

Make sure you take everything up in one trip. On interior work that means a drill with the right bits, plugs and screws, a spirit level, a pencil, the fittings themselves and something to catch the dust in. Put small items in a tub rather than loose on the floor of the deck, because a plug that falls three metres is never found again in a furnished room. Carrying a spare bit up saves a descent as well.

Moving indoors takes more handling than outdoors. You clear your tools away, lift the protective sheet with you, roll along a stretch and set the brakes again before climbing on. In an average room reckon on about three positions and finish each space entirely before you take the tower apart and carry it to the next door. If the task is hanging curtain rails, the window layout decides where the tower goes in turn and how often.

What gets dropped off is a full, counted set of separate tubes, decks and braces. For interior work that is the only usable form: loose, you take everything along in turn to the place it is needed, and only there do you put it together. The driver unloads at the point you indicate, generally at the kerb, on the drive or just behind the door. Book on a working day and in any case before 15:00, and it is all there the day after.

You decide when the set arrives and when it goes back again. Take the day before your first working day, because carrying in and building costs an hour and you would rather not shave that off your job time. Assembly is your part of the deal, and the manual and the film set out the order the parts go in, so you never have to unbuild halfway. Run through the steps in the guide to putting a tower up once before you start.

Once your interior work is done we come back for the set. You take the tower apart, bring the parts out room by room and stand them ready in full where the van can pull up. Count them off while dismantling and you will not miss a brace still lying behind a cupboard in the bedroom, saving a trip through the whole house. The amount for bringing and collecting depends on your province and is stated with the costs of delivery and collection.

The floor you stand on is tested to EN 1004 and belongs in load class 3, which means it may carry 200 kg on each square metre. Interior work rarely comes near it, not even with a cordless drill, a carton of fittings and someone alongside holding a rail steady. Do make sure you spread heavy items across the deck rather than putting everything down in the same corner, and certainly not right by the rail where you are standing yourself.

The fixed rules hold indoors as well, with their own accent. Set the wheels on the brake before climbing on and remember that such a brake grips less on a smooth floor than on block paving. Wheeling happens with a bare deck and nobody aboard, not even over that one metre to the next point. Wind plays no part inside, but a door that bangs shut in a draught startles you just as much, so hold it with a wedge.

The genuine risks of interior work sit in what surrounds you. Cables and pipes run above your head, so take the circuit off before you drill into a ceiling. Below your deck stands furniture that a tool falls hard onto, and dust makes a floor slippery. Keep that zone clear, put a sheet over what cannot be moved and do not let the household walk through while you work. The rules one after another are at the rules for work at height.