Roof covering maintenance? Choose the right scaffold.

Repairing a roof covering means taking a great deal up with you: rolls of repair tape, a tin of cold adhesive or sealant, primer, a brush, a knife, a roller and cloths to keep your hands clean. That does not fit on a plank of 75 cm without you tripping over it. That is why you hire a mobile scaffold with a genuinely wide deck here, the Altrex RS52 with its floor of 135 cm, with your material on one side and you working on the other.

That width counts double when there are two of you. One holds a strip in place while the other presses it down or heats it, and you do not want to knock elbows on a narrow floor with open tins of sealant between you. With a platform length of 245 cm you can also follow a whole seam in one go without moving halfway. You only really notice that difference on the third working day. The sizes stand side by side in the overview of models you hire by the day.

If the surface to be repaired sits on a garage or a low extension, the MiTower with 4.2 to 6.2 metres of working height is a lighter option, though you work alone on it and with far less floor. A storey higher and that reach falls short. Where the way round the back runs past a narrow gate, the RS51 at 75 cm remains, while the RS44 room scaffold exists only for jobs inside the house.

On maintenance to the covering the work sits in two places: in the surface just behind the rim, and on the upstand where the layer runs up against a wall or a dormer. The highest point you have to reach with any force is usually that upstand or the roof edge trim over it. If the flat part lies on the second storey, 8 to 12 metres of working height belongs with it, and that is what you state in your booking.

You convert height into build with the familiar ratio: above your floor there is roughly 2 metres of reach, and the two together make the working height you fix. For repair work you pick that setting a little lower than for a survey, because you have to push and roll rather than only look. With your waist level with the rim you put your weight through properly. The build per height is shown on the page about 9 metres of working height.

Choose too low and you work with your arms stretched above your head, which you notice at once when pressing a seam down: the strip does not lie tight and the repair lets go after one winter. Measure from the point where the wheels meet the ground, so from the terrace or the garden path at the back, and not from a raised step or the threshold of the back door. In doubt you hire a size up.

Flat surfaces usually lie at the back or to the side: over an extension, a garage or a store. Your standing position is therefore seldom the street but the garden path, the terrace or the drive beside it. Go over that place before you hire, and think not only of the tower itself but of where your rolls, tins and a gas bottle will stand. Everything you set out below has to stay clear of the zone the stabilisers reach into.

Under the wheels you want firm, level ground that does not sink if it rains overnight. Terrace slabs and bricks are suitable, wood chippings or a newly laid lawn are not. Watch for a level difference between garden and terrace, for an inspection cover or a crawl space hatch under your foot, and for hedge branches that come out exactly at floor height. Measure the spot before you book. For ground that falls away, levelling on a sloping or soft base offers a way out.

On this job take account of what happens below you as well. Cut offs of bitumen, drips of adhesive and a knocked over tin of primer leave marks on paving that never come out, so put an old sheet under your build. If you work with a torch you also want nothing flammable near the foot: no garden cushions, no jerrycan, no dry hedge. Warn the neighbours if you stand right on the boundary, and set a bucket of water ready below.

Maintaining a roof covering takes longer than assessing it, and that difference is not in the number of actions but in the waiting. A surface has to be clean and dry, primer has to grip, sealant has to cure and a strip you have pressed down you would rather leave alone overnight before stepping on it. For a flat roof section with a handful of repairs you therefore reckon on two to four days with the tower standing.

The weather decides more here than your planning. Nothing bonds on a wet surface, in full sun bitumen goes too soft to press down neatly, and in frost a strip lets go straight away. So look for a run of dry days and do not put your first working day on the day the shower has just passed. If a second surface on the other side of the house has to be done, add a day of building.

For the wallet a generous booking is nearly free here: you pay in full for the first 24 hours and on all the days after that a reduction of 95 per cent applies. A waiting day while the sealant cures therefore costs you almost nothing, while booking too tight forces you to dismantle with half a repair done. How to settle such a period is worked out in the article on setting the length of your hire.

Per build you finish a strip of two and a half metres of roof edge, and you divide that up. First clean the piece and let it dry, then treat the loose seam or the blister you have cut open, then the bonded edge and the joint onto the upstand, and finally go over everything and press it down. Do that completely before you move the tower, because coming back to half a repair means unrolling and cleaning all over again.

What goes up goes up in one trip. A bucket holding your rolls, your sealant, your knife, your brush and a cloth saves you four climbs, and a long piece of tape you cut to size below. Open tins and aerosols belong in the middle of the floor, well away from the guard rail, because it is exactly when you bend forwards that you knock something over. A dropped tin of primer on paving is an expensive stain.

What people underestimate is the number of builds an apparently small surface asks for. Unlike maintenance on a tiled roof you do not run round a gutter here but stay on one flat area. An extension of six metres with an upstand all round already means three positions. Find more damage under a loose strip than expected and the work gets heavier and you hire on longer. If the layer is truly finished, it turns into repairing the roof covering instead.

The mobile scaffold comes to you in parts, counted out and complete, and that stack has to lie somewhere it is not in your way while you work. Do not pick the place under your build, because your sheet with cut offs is going there. Lay the stack on a piece of sheeting if you can. What you settle on a working day before 15:00 we load the following working day, so you can still match the delivery to the forecast at short notice.

Putting it together stays your task. A manual is included and a fitting video is online; with two people you are building for half a day before the first roll of repair tape goes up. So plan that build a day ahead of your first repair, rather than starting halfway through a day. Both the day it is brought and the day it goes back are yours to pick, so you can assemble on a still morning and do the bonding work the day after.

Once the repair is finished and the last seam pressed down, you take the build apart and we come and remove the parts. Only do that when you are sure you need to get up nowhere else, because building a second time for one small spot wastes a day. Count the parts as you dismantle and the set goes back complete. What the journey there and back costs in your province is listed with the amounts for delivery.

These mobile scaffolds are made to EN 1004 and fall in load class 3, with a permitted load of 200 kg on every square metre of floor. On maintenance to a roof covering you add up faster than on a survey: two people, a tool box, a case of rolls and possibly a gas bottle sit close to that limit together. So do not set everything down on one half of the floor, and take material you have used back down in between.

The basic rules stay unchanged: brake the wheels before you climb on, only wheel the build when nobody and nothing is on it, and put the stabilisers firmly back on the ground after every move. In wind you stop, and here doubly so, because a gust catches a loose length of repair material and a flame cannot be aimed in the wind. Check as well that the gutter below you is free of dry leaves, and lay your gas hose aside before you move.

Working with a torch or a hot air gun, keep a fire blanket or a bucket of water within reach and never work right along a wooden fascia board or a plastic outlet. Let the material cool a moment after heating before you put tools away, because a warm roller stays hot on an aluminium platform for a long time. Leave the floor clean at the end of the day for the next morning. The rest of the agreements are in what applies when working at height.