Cleaning a gutter? Choose the right scaffold.

For gutter work on a house of two storeys you land on the Altrex RS51, listed in the brochure as the RS TOWER 51, a mobile scaffold 75 cm wide that steps up from 4.2 to 14.2 metres of working height. Those 75 cm are the whole argument here, because a gutter runs right round the house and the tower has to pass a side gate, cross a slabbed path or squeeze between the fence and the brickwork. Every build you can hire as a mobile scaffold sits together on one page.

On the deck you do not miss that extra width. Emptying a gutter puts you face to the wall with the channel bottom within arm's reach, and what goes up with you is small: a hand scoop, work gloves, a bucket and later the garden hose. Deck length matters more. With 245 cm under your feet you lay open a good two metres of channel per position, and that figure decides how often you climb down that day to wheel the tower along.

The wider RS52 at 135 cm is worth weighing up if you work in a pair, or if the same round takes in the roof tiles and the moss above the channel. Then two buckets stand up there with tools between them. If it stays with the gutter itself the narrow tower wins, simply because you have to wheel it round the house four or five times over. Both sit side by side in the piece on choosing a scaffold for gutter work.

The highest point of this job is the gutter itself, and that is exactly what makes it awkward: you must not merely reach it, you must be able to look into it. Stand level with the channel and you see only the outer rim and scoop by feel. What you want is a deck that comes out around hip height alongside the gutter. Count on roughly 2 metres of reach above that deck, and together the two give the working height that goes on your booking.

Where you start measuring makes a difference. Take the level the wheels will rest on and not the doorstep at the front, because a back garden that sits half a metre lower drags your whole build down with it. On an average terraced house the gutter hangs at five to six metres, and then you put six to eight metres of working height on the reservation. What that means in decks and braces is shown on the page about working at eight metres.

Choose too tight a build and it punishes you at once. You work with your arms above your head, you cannot see whether the silt around the gutter brackets has gone, and you flush on trust. You also miss the point where the channel runs into the outlet hopper, which is precisely where the plug sits. One step higher costs you almost nothing to hire; a second round of the whole house costs plenty. If your gutter sits above a first floor, take the roomier build.

The strip under the gutter is no neutral patch on this job: everything you scoop out lands there. Clear it first. Garden chairs, bikes, the barbecue and the wheelie bins go aside, or by the end of the morning they sit under a layer of wet leaves and mud. Allow as well for the stabilisers, which splay outwards on four sides, and for a walking strip so you can get past the foot of the tower with a full bucket.

Watch the ground above all, because it changes while you work. Grass and soil under a back gutter go soft the moment you start flushing, and a wheel that sinks means levelling again. Lay paving slabs or stout boards under the wheels before you start, even if everything is bone dry at building time. Where the garden falls away towards the fence, level the base on its adjustable legs first and read the notes on an uneven surface if you need them.

Along a gutter the same obstacles turn up nearly every time: the downpipe on the corner, a shed built against the wall, an extension with a flat roof, a hedge that runs right up to the brickwork and the neighbours' boundary a metre away. Walk the route right round the house beforehand and settle per side where the tower can stand. If part of it lands on the pavement, keep a way past clear for pedestrians.

A terraced house with a gutter front and back takes you about a working day, spread over four to six positions. A detached house with four gutter sides and an extension keeps you busy considerably longer. Add the building to that, because the first morning goes on sorting the parts and levelling the first position. In practice the mobile scaffold therefore stands there for two days, even though the scooping itself fits comfortably into one.

The waiting here is not in drying times but in the weather and in the check afterwards. Once you have scooped it out you want to run the garden hose through and see the water leave neatly by the outlet. If it stands still, the blockage sits lower down and half a day goes into that. Heavy rain or a stiff wind pushes your work along by half a day as well, and in November the channel fills up again after the first gale.

The rental price is built on that. Full rate applies to the first 24 hours, and every day you tack on after it gets 95% off. A spare day for poor weather or a blocked outlet therefore costs you little, and that beats a half emptied gutter with the collection van at the door. So set your end date a day beyond the round in which you clear the last metres. How to judge such a period is set out in the article on rental days.

Start at the highest point of the gutter and work towards the outlet, because a gutter is laid to a fall and everything you loosen slides that way by itself. Working the other way pushes the debris onto a length you have just cleared. Scoop the coarse material out over the full run by hand first, and only reach for the garden hose once nothing loose is left lying. That way the plug does not travel into the downpipe.

Take up only what you actually use: gloves, a hand scoop or gutter spoon, a plastic tub and a cloth. A bucket hung on the rail keeps the deck clear, so you can shuffle sideways along the channel without stepping over it each time. Throwing waste down is only allowed when you are certain nobody is below; if you have any doubt the tub simply travels down with you when you move. A lid or an old sack over it saves half the garden from wet mess.

You move empty: clear the deck, set the tub down, brakes off, wheel along, brakes on and wind the stabilisers out again. What people misjudge is how often that circuit comes round. Twelve metres of gutter per side already gives five or six positions, and on a corner house the side channel is added to that. So work out your gutter length beforehand and divide it by two. Cleaning stops at a clean channel: looking only is inspecting a gutter, and resetting brackets belongs to yearly gutter maintenance, which takes more rental days.

You get the mobile scaffold delivered as a counted set of loose parts, complete down to the last brace. The cut off for ordering is 15:00 on a working day; stay under it and the van pulls up on the next working day. Point out a spot for that stack in advance, and do not choose the strip under the gutter, because leaves and silt will be falling there. On the drive, along the fence or in the front garden the parts stay dry and still sit close to hand.

The date it comes and the date it goes are both yours to pin. With gutter work that helps, because you want to build on a day without rain and to start once the leaf fall is over. Putting it up belongs to your job and not to our hire: with a second person you assemble it in the order of the manual, with the instruction video within reach. What delivery costs differs per province and stands as a fixed amount in the delivery charges overview.

When you are done you take it apart and stack the complete set in one place, after which we come and remove it again. Rinse the wheels and the decks off before you stack, because a day of gutter work leaves mud on them that you regret later. Count the parts as you dismantle, so the set tallies at the moment the driver stands at the door. The order of all that is in the notes on dismantling and handing back.

The deck you stand on falls under EN 1004 in load class 3 and may carry 200 kg per square metre. On gutter work you fill that allowance faster than you think, because a bucket of wet leaves and silt soon weighs twenty kilos, and if someone joins you to take the sack it counts too. Spread what you have with you across the deck and do not park the lot in the corner by the hatch.

The ordinary rules hold as well. Brake both wheels the moment you take the first rung. You wheel with an empty tower, without tools and without anyone on it, and once it starts blowing in earnest you come down. That last one applies here more than on other maintenance, because gutter work falls in the wet season by definition. After every move, check that all four stabilisers stand firmly on the ground again, since a tower rocking on three feet only shows itself once you are up top.

What really belongs to this job is getting wet. Mud under your soles makes the rungs slippery and on a deck with flush water on it you slide away easily. Wipe off between stretches and wear boots with a stiff sole. Keep the zone below you clear, because a clod of silt or a gutter spoon that shoots out of your hand lands exactly there. Working above a path the neighbours use, put a cone or a wheelbarrow in front of it. The rules together are at safe work at height.