Painting a gutter? Choose the right scaffold.

The model you hold for this work is the Altrex RS51, officially the RS TOWER 51. It is a mobile scaffold 75 cm wide that you can build between 4.2 and 14.2 metres of working height, and that narrow measure pays you back at every move. Because a gutter follows the full width of the house, you wheel the position from left to right all day, past a water butt, a hedge or a drive full of cars. The complete overview sits at the mobile scaffolds in our hire fleet.

Up top you need little room, but the right room. A tin of paint, a brush, a small brush for the bead, a cloth and a roll of tape stand side by side happily on a deck of 245 cm, and that length also settles how much gutter you finish at a time. Put the tin in a tray or hang it from a hook, because a tin knocked over on your deck costs half a day of cleaning and an ugly mark on the paving.

Painting in a pair, or taking the fascia and the roof edge along in the same round, the wider RS52 at 135 cm works more calmly. For the gutter alone that is unnecessary, and the extra width turns against you the moment you have to wheel along the wall or get through a gate to the back garden. What separates the models in size and weight is in the overview of dimensions, so you know what you are lifting.

On paint work at a gutter the deciding point is not the underside but the top rim. If you want the inside included, you have to look into it and reach the bottom with your brush, and that only comes off if your deck lands at about hip or waist height alongside the channel. You fix the working height by taking that deck height with roughly 2 metres added for reach, and that figure goes on the booking. Deck height and working height are not the same thing.

For an ordinary house of two storeys that comes down to six to eight metres. Look as well at whether there is an overhang above the channel, because then you have to get your arm under it and you would rather not stand too high. Always measure from the surface the wheels will rest on, since a terrace a step higher does not count. What a build of seven metres of working height means in practice you can read there before you hire.

Stand too low and in practice you paint only the outside and the underside. The inside and the top rim then stay bare or take a thin, uneven coat that flakes off again after one winter. You notice that only when it is too late, because from the ground such a gutter looks perfectly fine. Working on a channel above a first floor, choose a deck higher rather than a build that is too tight for the job.

On paint work you look not only at how solid the spot is, but also at what lies underneath. Something always drips, and paint on decorative paving or on the neighbour's bonnet is a problem you avoid with a sheet of cover film. Lay that film down before you build the scaffold, because afterwards you slide nothing under it. Allow further for the four stabilisers pointing outwards and for a strip to walk along beside it.

The ground has to be flat and load bearing, and on this job preferably dry too. A lawn that turns to slurry after a shower gives you not only sinking wheels but mud on the rungs and so on your hands, which you wipe sooner or later onto a freshly painted gutter. Slabs, a drive or a made up path are better. Where the garden falls away, use the adjustable legs and read the notes on the surface if needed.

Look finally at what stands against the wall. Ivy, a tall hedge, a shed or a pergola all keep you from putting the tower close enough to the channel, and painting at a distance does not work. Cut that growth back before the delivery arrives. Along a long wall it pays to settle beforehand how many positions you need and exactly where they go, so you are not puzzling on your first painting day with the tin already open.

The painting itself goes faster than the preparation. You start with cleaning, degreasing and sanding, you prime the bare patches, and only then does the first real coat follow. On an average terraced house with a front and a back channel that already takes two days, and the second coat is still to come. Add the building to it and you arrive at three to four days that the mobile scaffold stays at your house before it goes back.

The waiting is in the drying time between coats and in the weather. How long you have to wait exactly stands on the packaging of the product you use, and at low temperatures or high humidity it takes longer in practice than it says. Rain on fresh paint means doing it again, so before you fix a rental period study the forecast across the whole week rather than only tomorrow's line. Evening temperature counts as well.

With such a longer period the way the rental price is built works in your favour, and it saves more here than on a job of one morning. The first 24 hours are settled in full and after that 95% comes off every following day, so a week with a couple of spare days differs little from three tight ones. Building slack in is therefore not luxury but sensible planning. How to make that estimate before you commit is in the piece on hire duration.

A deck measures 245 cm along its length, so a good two metres of gutter lies in front of you per position. Finish that length completely then: inside, top rim, outside, the bead and the little bit under the gutter board. Leave part of it because you will pass again and you will see later exactly where you stopped. Take up only as much paint as fits into that stretch, in a small tin or a paint kettle with a lid.

Go from one end of the wall to the other and hold that order, so on the second round you know exactly which stretches already carry two coats. Never move the scaffold with open paint on the deck: set the tin below, wheel the tower on, put the brakes on and give the stabilisers pressure again. That costs a few minutes each time, and those minutes have long been built into the rental period you booked.

What people underestimate is the number of times they have to pass the same wall. Two coats on ten metres of channel means ten or twelve positions, and on a corner house with a side gutter that runs up further. Taking the roof edge or the fascia along, count extra time. It is often clever to settle painting the fascia boards within the same rental period, because the tower is up anyway and you have already made the build.

On paint work the forecast is the instrument with which you plan your rental period. Pick a delivery date at the start of a dry run of days and not just before a front comes over. Booking is possible until 15:00 on a working day if you want it the next working day, but on painting you would rather reserve a week ahead, so you catch the right spell. What then arrives is a complete set of loose parts, counted through.

Lay those parts somewhere no paint lands and where they stay dry, on the drive for instance or under a carport. Putting them together is your work: we do not build and we do not deliver assembled, but you get a manual and an instruction video with which two people are done in half a day. You may also come and fetch them: make an appointment and you take the parts home at no extra charge. What delivery costs in your province is in the overview of rates for bringing and taking away.

The collection date is yours as well, and on paint work you set it a day after your last coat. Fresh paint you do not want touched by scaffold parts, and taking a tower down along a channel that is still wet goes wrong almost every time. When you dismantle, set everything complete in one place and we come to remove the set. Count the parts as you stack, because between the cover film and the painting gear a brace or a castor goes missing easily.

Load class 3 within EN 1004 means that 200 kg may stand on every square metre of deck. On paint work you do not get near that, because you carry little with you. Even so it is worth knowing that it is not only about your own weight: a second painter, a ten litre tin and a box of sanding gear add together. What that class means in practice is explained at the standard for mobile scaffolds, so you know what your deck takes.

For the rest the usual agreements hold. Brake both wheels before you climb up, let nobody stand on the scaffold while it is being wheeled, and come down as soon as the wind picks up. Painting a gutter, you often have one hand on the tin as well, so climb calmly with your gear in a bag or on a hook. After every move, look whether all four stabilisers really make contact with the ground, on a sloping path too.

The risk that belongs to this job is slipping. Spilt paint on a deck is greasy and does not dry away, so wipe it up at once with a cloth and some cleaner. Leave no tin or brush tray standing on the edge of the deck either and keep the zone underneath entirely clear. Working above a path people walk along, put a tub or a cone in front of it. The remaining rules are at working at height.