Applying a coating? Choose the right scaffold.

For coating a large facade you hire the Altrex RS52, the wide version measuring 135 cm across. That difference of sixty centimetres against the slim variant looks small on paper, but at ten metres up it is the difference between working and manoeuvring. You stand two buckets side by side, keep a walkway clear and can pass one another when two of you are up there working. The models are shown under mobile scaffold hire.

This model runs from 4.2 metres right through to 14.2 metres of working height, so the 8 to 12 metres a facade of three or four storeys asks for sits well inside it. The platform length is 245 cm, and that figure keeps coming back on coating work: it sets how wide your band is and therefore how often you move the tower. Work those strips out before you book, because they tell you straight away how many days you need.

The slim RS51 of 75 cm exists as well, and you pick that one only if the wide version cannot get to the spot: a gateway, an alley between two houses, a courtyard reached through a passage. You then give up working room on a coating job, because your bucket is permanently in the way. Where the approach allows it, hire a mobile scaffold of the wide sort instead. The dimensions of both stand together in the overview of sizes.

On coating work you measure to the topmost edge that still receives material, usually the junction with the roof edge or the underside of the gutter. A house of three storeys lands you at around nine to ten metres; four storeys or a tall gable runs towards twelve. That is why 8 to 12 metres of working height is the range you go and hire. Measure from the pavement the wheels will stand on. That build is pictured on the page about 12 metres of working height.

The working height is not the height of your floor. On the platform you stand about two metres under the highest point you can still reach with the roller, because your arms and the handle cover the rest. At twelve metres of working height your deck therefore sits at roughly ten. That is exactly why a tall facade is worked in bands: you do not build once and reach everything, you shift the platform up and down as well.

Booking too tight costs you a whole day on this job. Come up just short of the roof edge with your top band and you have to extend the build with material already on it, which means clearing it, rebuilding and lining up again. So take the height that lets you do the top row in one pass. Working on a facade up to and including the third floor, twelve metres has you covered. An extra metre of hire beats half a day of rebuilding.

A build of ten metres makes heavier demands on the spot than a low tower does. The ground has to carry without settling, over the whole footprint, and at this height the four stabilisers reach a long way out. So do not reckon only on the 135 cm of the scaffold itself but on a strip several metres wide along the facade, free of bollards, low railings and parked cars. On the street that usually means keeping a parking bay clear.

With a coating the logistics of the material come on top of that. The buckets stand below, and you want that place immediately beside the build so you are not dragging them across the pavement. Keep room round the feet for a pallet or a barrow, and set out a walkway for passers by if you are working on the street. Check with the council which rules apply to your footway. Stabilising at this height is covered in the explanation of anchoring.

Look at what hangs above and beside you as well. At nine or twelve metres you are level with dormers, canopies, cables and the neighbours' awning, and those help decide where the build goes. Walk the whole facade beforehand and mark the places where you cannot stand tight against the wall. That saves you half an hour of shuffling an assembled scaffold on the day itself. A quarter of an hour of preparation wins that back easily.

Work the job out in set-ups rather than in hours. A facade eight metres wide and ten metres tall is eighty square metres. With a platform of 245 cm you work bands a good two metres wide, and from one platform height you take a strip a good two metres tall. That comes to four bands beside one another and four or five heights, so sixteen to twenty set-ups per coat. Moving sideways costs a quarter of an hour each time, rebuilding upwards longer.

Add the preparation and the coats to that. The facade has to be clean and dry, cracks and open joints are repaired first, and a coating normally goes on in two layers with a waiting time between them. For an average facade you end up at six to eight hire days, a couple of which go on washing and drying. If the wall first has to be cleaned down thoroughly, add at least one day, and on a badly soiled panel nearer two.

Such a long period is not as costly as it sounds. You pay the whole tariff for the first day and night, and on every day after that the tariff drops by 95 per cent. Booking eight days therefore differs little from booking five, while it gives you the room to absorb a shower or an extra washing round. So book beyond your final coat. How high you may build in general is set out in the piece on maximum height.

Work a block per set-up that you can hold in one go. On coating the wet edge is what leads: as long as it stays wet, the next band joins on invisibly. So start at the top of your strip, work downwards and keep the side alive until you reach the end of your reach. Stop at a corner, a downpipe or a vertical joint, because that is where a start shows least. At ten metres up you will see that choice from the pavement later.

What you carry up decides how often you have to come down. A bucket of coating soon weighs twenty kilos, and with a ladder inside the build you will not get it up there neatly. So work with a line and a bucket hook, or top up above from a smaller can. On a deck 135 cm wide two buckets stand side by side without you tripping over them, and that is precisely why you hire this model. Every trip down you avoid is a gain.

What people underestimate is how often you have to rebuild in height. Moving sideways is quick: brakes off, roll, stabilisers back out. Hanging a platform a level higher or lower is another story, because everything has to come off the deck first. So plan those moments deliberately: do the whole top band across the full width of the facade, and only then drop a level. That way you rebuild four times over instead of twenty, and the difference lands straight in your hire days.

For 8 to 12 metres a substantial set of parts comes your way: frames, braces, platforms, guard rails and the stabilisers, counted and complete. That stack is bigger than people expect, so point out a place beforehand that is not on the route of your material and your buckets. Anything reserved before 15:00 on a working day goes into the van the following working day. On a tight programme that can easily save you a week of waiting.

The date of delivery and the date of collection are yours to fill in. For coating you have it dropped on the day you wash the facade, so the build is ready as soon as the surface is dry. Assembling up to ten metres is your work; manual and instruction video point out the sequence, and with two people it takes half a day. Count that half day in, because you will not be coating then. At this height it is not something you fit in alongside.

After the final layer we collect the set again. Strike it once the panel is dry and put the parts out bundled where the van can reach them; on a facade at the street that is often the same parking bay the build stood in. What bringing and fetching cost together varies by province, and you see that amount in advance on the page with delivery charges. Take that amount into your calculation before you book.

On this job the loading is not theory. The platform is passed for 200 kg per square metre, load class 3 under EN 1004, and with two people, two full buckets and a tool box you get there faster than you think. Add the weight of your material up once before you send it all aloft, because one bucket fewer above is rarely a problem. What the class means exactly is in the piece on loading and weight.

The standing rules weigh heavier at this height. Brake every wheel before anyone steps on, never move the scaffold with buckets or a second person aboard, and stop the moment it starts to blow. At ten metres you feel wind you barely notice below, and a half full bucket on the guard rail is the first thing to go. After each move, check that all the stabilisers are out again and the wheels locked. That round costs you a minute.

The risk that belongs to coating is what goes down. A bucket that tips at ten metres reaches a car, a front door or a passer by, and material on the street stays visible. Cordon off the zone under the build with tape, hang sheeting against the facade where you need it, and keep the deck clean; spilled coating makes a floor slippery without you seeing it. A roll of cardboard and a cloth in your pocket sort that out.