Inspecting a roof? Choose the right scaffold.

For an inspection the wide Altrex version stands most pleasantly, at 135 cm between the uprights with a platform length of 245 cm. Not because you take much weight up, but because you are busy with both hands while you hang over the edge and look. On a roomy deck you can lay down your camera, a torch and your notebook and still take a step sideways to look from another angle. That last thing makes a genuine difference when you are judging.

If the only way past the house is a path a metre wide, you hire the slim RS51 at 75 cm. You stand more tightly then, but for looking that is workable: you simply put less down and keep your things in a shoulder bag. What you do weigh up is that you climb up and down with that bag more often. In the mobile scaffold hire range both widths stand beside each other with their reach.

What is not needed here is a heavy, tall structure you have to anchor with steel cables. You use the scaffold for a day, you look, you photograph and you come back down. So choose on reach and on the passage to the spot where you want to stand, and not on load capacity. The dimensions of both models are given in the overview of sizes, including the width the stabilisers take up on either side.

The point you need to reach is the gutter and the edge above it, because almost every roof problem begins there. You want your eyes above that edge, otherwise you look at the underside of the tiles and see nothing of the surface behind them. On a house of two storeys the gutter sits somewhere between 6 and 8 metres, which puts you in the 8 to 12 metre class of working height. What you enter is your platform height with a good 2 metres of reach on top.

The measuring point lies below, on the ground where the castors will stand. That sounds obvious, but with a sloping driveway or a sunken back garden it easily accounts for half a metre. Measure as well whether a dormer or a projecting bay is in the way, because you cannot see through those and will have to go round them. What a reach of 12 metres means in practice is worked out on that page, including the number of platforms you build for it.

Choosing too low costs you the whole inspection. Stand a metre short and you miss exactly the zone you came for, and you are a day further with no answer. On looking work you notice that only once you are up there, and by then the build is done. So rather take one level extra. If the gutter hangs at the level of the second living floor, pick the roomier variant of the reach when you hire.

On an inspection you do not choose one spot but a handful of viewing positions. Usually you want to be at the chimney, at a dormer, on the corner where the gutter drains and at the point where you saw a damp patch inside. Walk those points from below first and work out what ground lies underneath. Then you know in advance whether you can wheel the scaffold along or whether a step or a border edge sits somewhere in between.

Under the set up you have to fit the stabilisers, and they ask more room on each side than the frame itself. On a terrace that is no issue, in a narrow alley it is. Watch the ground as well: loose gravel and fresh soil give way under the castors, and on a lawn that has just got wet the whole thing sinks. For crooked or loose surfaces the approach is described in the guidance on uneven terrain.

Think too about what you want to view from above. Stand tight against the wall and you look steeply upwards and hardly see the roof surface; half a metre of distance often gives you a better picture. On the street side you keep a walking route free and check with the council what is permitted on the pavement. For a single viewing position on the footway that is quickly arranged, but you do have to have done it beforehand.

A roof inspection is one of the few jobs where you hire a mobile scaffold for a genuinely short spell. Nothing has to dry, nothing has to cure and there is no material you apply in stages. Reckon on half a day for the build, half a day for looking and photographing per side, and on a small house you are round with one day. On a house where you want to look at three or four sides, a second day comes quickly.

You need that second day more often than expected, and not because of the looking itself. Repositioning takes time: brakes off, stabilisers in, wheel it, level it, lock everything again. Do that four times and the day is gone. If rain or wind comes over you stand still, because in the wet you do not see on a roof what you are looking for and your camera is not going up anyway. So count on half a spare day.

On a short hire the way the price is built up is pleasant. The first day you pay in full, and a second day joins it with 95 per cent off, so that extra margin costs almost nothing. Anyone who books tight and does not finish has to have it delivered again later and pays that whole first 24 hours a second time. That trade off is worked out further in the article about a day or a week.

Be honest about this, otherwise you draw conclusions you cannot support. From the deck of the scaffold you look well into the gutter, along the gutter brackets and at the bottom two or three rows of tiles, and you judge the fascia board and the overhang from close by. With a zoom lens you pull in a further stretch of roof surface. What you do not see is the ridge, the valley gutter in the middle and the back of a chimney.

What you also do not do is step off the scaffold onto the roof for a better look. A mobile scaffold is a workplace with a deck and guard rails; a tiled roof is not. Anyone who has to go onto the roof surface does so with the provisions meant for it and not on an impulse from the guard rail. For an ordinary check of gutter, edges and brackets you do not need the roof at all, and that is what makes a short hire so attractive.

So work systematically per position. Your 245 cm platform covers a good two metres of roof edge, so photograph the same series from every position: gutter from the inside, the joint with the wall, the first rows of tiles, and an overview. Number your photographs per position and at home you still know which corner belonged where. For a flat roof with bitumen sheets, look at inspecting the roof covering, and for blockages start with inspecting the gutter.

You get a complete, counted set of parts delivered on the spot you point out yourself. On a short job that matters even more: you want the stack right beside the first viewing position, so you are not hauling half a garden across before you can begin. Book before 15:00 on a working day and the parts are lying there the next working day. For an inspection you want to arrange quickly, that is often exactly enough.

The arrival day and the collection day you pin down yourself. For an inspection you would rather pick a dry, clear day, because in the rain you hardly see what is really going on and your lenses fog up. So have it delivered the day before and plan the inspection for the morning, when the light comes from the side and shadows show up cracks and sagging. The rate for bringing and fetching is fixed per province on the page with delivery charges.

Afterwards we come and take the set away again; dismantling and stacking the parts neatly is yours. Because no material is involved in inspecting, that is clean and quick work and the scaffold is often down within the hour. If your findings make you want to schedule a repair after all, keep the tower standing instead of having it collected first, since the rental price of an extra day weighs far less than a second delivery.

Load class 3 within EN 1004 allows 200 kg per square metre on the deck, and on inspection work you use a fraction of it. That is exactly where it goes wrong: because it feels light, people climb up with a camera round their neck and a ladder under their arm, or bring somebody along who has no business there. The rules do not change because you have only come to look. More on that class stands in the explanation of this standard.

Lock the castors before you go up and leave them locked as long as anybody is on the scaffold. Never move the set up while things or a person are still above, even if it is only one position further. In wind above a stiff breeze you postpone: you are standing still and peering, and that is precisely when you do not see a gust coming. Photographing can just as well happen an hour later, and calm air gives sharper pictures too.

The particular risk of inspecting is distraction. You look upwards, you lean out to see behind the gutter and you stop watching your feet. Keep contact with the guard rail at all times, use a phone or a camera fitted with a wrist strap, and put your torch down on the deck rather than holding it in your mouth. Which further agreements apply for as long as you hire the scaffold is described in the safety rules at height.