Hanging an outdoor light? Choose the right scaffold.

For one fitting on the wall the RS51 is more than enough: 75 cm wide, light to build and small enough to sit right beside a front door or in a narrow side garden. Little goes up with a light, so deck area is not the bottleneck here; the clear space on the ground is, because at a wall there are usually borders, wheelie bins and a bike rack. Which versions stand ready is on the page about mobile scaffold hire.

The wide 135 cm version adds nothing to this job. A drill, a box of screws, a tube of sealant and the fitting itself go on any working deck, and the extra width only makes the tower heavier to shift alone. If the fixing point is wedged between a bay window and a downpipe as well, the narrow model is the only one that stands square in front of it without you reaching sideways to the hole.

If the point stays under about six metres and you really are on your own, the MiTower is worth weighing up: 75 cm wide and made for one person. Above that height it will not do and you take the RS51. Ask somebody along for the build in any case, even if you fit the light alone afterwards; handing up platforms and braces is simply safer with two. What the one person tower manages is at the MiTower available to hire.

The highest point of this job is not the roof edge but the hole where the light comes to hang, usually about two and a half metres above the door or just under the overhang. On a house with one storey that puts you at 6 to 8 metres of working height, roomy enough to work above it in comfort and to take in a second point under the overhang. Which sections that takes is listed on the page for a build reaching eight metres.

You want to stand with your waist at the level of the hole, not your shoulders. Drilling goes best when you push straight forward rather than upward, and with a masonry bit of thirty centimetres that saves a great deal of force. So count half a metre back from the hole for the level of your deck, then add the roughly two metres of reach to arrive at the working height you enter when booking.

Choose too low and you stand exactly wrong: drilling above your head, grit in your eyes and a hole running crooked into the brickwork. The fitting then hangs just off level, and you see that from the pavement straight away, every evening again. Hiring half a metre higher costs almost nothing and solves it. If the light sits on the storey rather than above the front door, look at the build for the first floor.

Because you have only one point, nothing needs moving, but that single standing position has to be right first time. Put the tower square in front of the fixing point and not beside it, so you can reach the hole from the middle of the deck without twisting. Measure that before you start building, because half a metre too far to the left means working at an angle all job and pushing the drill sideways into the wall.

The ground beside a front door is usually a path of slabs or block paving, and that is fine. Watch mainly what stands around it: a border with planting, a low wall, a bike rack, the bins and the gully of the downpipe. All four stabilisers point outwards at an angle and each claims its own piece of ground, so clear those things away before the tower goes up. A foot resting half on a border does not stand firm enough to drill from.

Think about the door underneath as well. With the setup directly in front of the front door it cannot open during the job, and you notice that only when somebody wants out with a bag of shopping. Better to put the tower half a metre aside and work from the edge of the deck, or use the back door that day. How to deal with a path falling towards the street is at setting up on uneven ground.

The fitting work itself is short. Drilling the hole, making the sleeve, pulling the cable through, wiring it up, fixing the fitting and sealing the sleeve together take about two hours. What fills the day is everything around it: isolating the circuit, making the connection indoors, raising the tower and taking it apart again at the end. So you book one hire day for a job that in working time does not even fill a morning, and that is precisely why the hire period on an outdoor light stays this short.

Even so it regularly goes otherwise. The bit meets a lintel or a wall tie, the existing wiring turns out not to match, or the cable will not go through the cavity because insulation is in the way. Those are exactly the things you only see with your nose against them. If you suspect that chasing has to be done indoors as well, one day is tight and you book two straight away rather than finding out at four in the afternoon.

That can be done without much objection, because a full day rate is charged once, at the start, and each following hire day comes with 95 per cent off. A spare day therefore costs you little, and you do not have to stop with an outdoor light half hung because the van is already outside. Set the collection date a day further when in doubt. What a longer period means for planning is in the explanation of hire days.

The deck is 245 cm long, and on this job that is not working width but room to move. There is the hole for the light, perhaps a sleeve some way to the side and an existing junction box that sits just off the same line; over that length you reach all three without moving the tower. Put your tools at one end and keep the other half clear for where you drill, so you never step over a bag while looking up.

Take everything up in one go. Drill, masonry bit, screwdriver, spirit level, box of plugs, cable gland, sealant gun, the fitting and the cable: lay that row out on the ground and only then climb. Every forgotten screw means down and up again, and on a job of two hours that is soon a quarter of your time. A bucket with a hook on the guard rail keeps the small parts together and stops anything rolling off the edge.

Take the circuit off before you touch the existing wiring and check that up there with a voltage tester; height is no place for surprises. Work in a fixed order after that: first drill the sleeve on a slight upward slant from outside so no water runs in, then feed the cable, then fix the fitting and only then seal the edge. That way you never have to come back to anything. If a switch or sensor belongs to it, see fitting a movement sensor.

With a short hire period the timing of the delivery matters more than with a long one. The set comes as loose, counted parts and they have to lie somewhere: at a front door that is often a narrow strip of pavement, so agree where the driver puts them down. Get the booking in on a working day before 15:00 and everything travels out on the next working day, which leaves you a full morning to start on.

Both dates, the one for bringing and the one for fetching, are yours to name, and on a single day job you want them tight together: dropped off the day before your free day, taken away the day after. Raising it falls under your own work, with the printed manual and the instruction film at your elbow. Reckon on about two hours with two people, so ask someone round for that morning even if you hang the light alone afterwards.

Afterwards we come for the mobile scaffold, and you make sure it is dismantled and lying complete somewhere the van can reach. On a short hire that is quickly done: taking it apart goes faster than putting it up. Count the parts through as you go, because a single coupler that ends up in the hedge will show up at the check afterwards. What bringing and fetching costs to your province is at the rates for delivery and collection.

The deck is rated for 200 kg per square metre, which within EN 1004 is called load class 3. With one light and some tools you are nowhere near that, so weight is not the issue here; stability is. So always set all four stabilisers out, even though you stand up there for only two hours and the tower seems solid without them. What the standard settles exactly is in the explanation of this scaffold standard.

The wheels go on the brake before you step on, and you never move the tower with tools or with somebody on it. If it is blowing hard, put the drilling off: you push with force against the wall and that sits badly with a tower that is shivering. Coming to the wiring, the circuit is off and you check that up there once more, not only below at the consumer unit. A voltage tester in your breast pocket weighs nothing.

What counts above all on this job is that you work directly over a walkway. At a front door the post, the parcel courier or a neighbour walks under you while you are into the brickwork and grit is coming down. Put a cone or a bike out as a barrier, never lay tools loose on the edge of the deck and tell the household to keep clear for a while. The further rules are at working safely at height.