Coating roof tiles? Choose the right scaffold.

For a tiled roof on two storeys the coating job asks for the RS52, the wide Altrex build carrying a deck of 135 cm. That width has a different reason here than usual: the platform is not a workplace but a crossing. You put your jerrycans on it, you lay your lance and your hose there, and you need room to turn while one leg is already resting on a tile. The full range sits on the page about hiring a mobile scaffold.

Do not confuse this job with coating a flat roof. There you roll or spray over the roof covering and the set up stays at the edge as a supply point, while with roof tiles you really have to go onto the sloping surface. That difference decides your choice: you need a deck two people fit on side by side, because one hands material across while the other steps over. The platform length of 245 cm gives the width of your landing strip along the gutter.

The narrow RS51 at 75 cm remains an emergency measure, for when the passage to the back forces you into it. You then stand with your material in the way of your own crossing. The MiTower at 6.2 metres is too low for a tiled roof on two storeys, and the RS44 room scaffold stays an indoor model with its 3 to 4 metres. To see the sizes together, look at the overview of tower dimensions.

On this job the scaffold does not have to reach your highest point, and that saves you something. What you do have to reach is the gutter, because that is where you step across. So you want your deck just under or level with the gutter edge; everything above it you reach walking over the tiles. On a house of two storeys the gutter usually hangs at six to seven metres, which puts your build between 8 and 12 metres.

In the booking form you fill in working height and not deck height. Between the two sits about two metres, namely the distance your hand still travels, so add roughly two metres to the height of your gutter to arrive at the right figure. Measure that gutter height from the spot where the castors will later stand and not from the threshold of your front door. A build of nine metres of working height shows well how many frames such a gutter edge takes.

Coming out too low is more annoying here than too high. Stand a metre below the gutter and at every crossing you have to clamber upwards with a jerrycan in your hand, exactly the movement you wanted to avoid. Stand one step too high and you simply step down onto the roof and hardly notice it. With a sloping garden work out every side separately, because the gutter runs level and the ground does not. In doubt about a roof above the second floor, take the higher build.

Pick the side where the gutter hangs lowest and the ground is flattest, because the set up goes there only once or twice and then stands for days. Paving or a driveway is ideal; lawn and loose garden soil sink away as soon as it rains, and then your crossing height changes without you noticing while you are up top. Lay setting plates or thick planks under the castors if there is no alternative, and check every morning that everything is still level before you climb on.

More has to fit round the foot than the tower alone. The four stabilisers point out into the garden at an angle, and beside that you want jerrycans, a bucket of water and possibly your pump on the ground without anyone tripping over them. Put that stuff next to the set up instead of underneath it, so you do not have to shift everything first when clearing away. How to handle soft or sloping ground is set out in the explanation about uneven ground.

Look as well at where the mist and the drips end up. Coloured coating settles on everything standing below, so cover the wall, the window frames and the planting and tell the neighbours before you begin. A conservatory, an extension or a shed roof against the house sometimes makes a position impossible; then you put the tower at the gable end and walk over the tiles to the surface in hand. Walk all four sides before you hire and note per side where the set up really fits.

A roof tile coating is not a one day job. First the moss and grime come off, because nothing you put on afterwards will grip a dirty tile. Then the roof has to dry, a primer goes on and two colour coats follow. For an average roof surface you therefore hire a mobile scaffold for four to six days, and with a house of several surfaces that runs on further, because you move the set up in between and have to realign it before crossing again.

The waiting time sits between the coats and is set by the product and the weather, not by your diary. A tile still wet with dew in the morning cannot be coated, and after a shower it takes longer than you think before the surface feels dry again. So plan in whole days instead of hours, and hang a margin behind it for the day you inevitably lose to weather that will not cooperate. Read the forecast per half day and not just the daily symbol.

That margin is cheap. You pay the full rate over the first twenty four hours only; every following day carries 95 per cent off, so two extra days barely count towards your rental price. What you spend per model and reach you find including VAT on the page with rates. Having to break off a roof surface halfway through a colour coat because the van is already at the door is a considerably dearer mistake, and that join stays visible from the street for years.

The 245 cm deck is your landing place. Everything that goes up stands there first: the jerrycan you top up from, a spare lance, a cloth and the tools you cannot use on the tiles. That way you need not come down off the roof for every small action. Count on stepping back and forth over the same gutter edge dozens of times in a working day, and keep the strip along the guard rail consistently clear.

With a coloured coating you work from the ridge downwards and finish at the gutter, so at your crossing. Never coat the strip you still have to walk over, because then you shut yourself in. Mix the jerrycans from the same batch together before you start the first colour coat as well; a small difference between two tubs shows up on a whole roof surface as a band. For that reason people would rather hire a day longer than stop halfway across a surface.

What people misjudge is how often the set up has to be moved. Per roof surface you usually stand only once or twice, because you mostly move about by walking over the tiles themselves. But with four surfaces, a dormer or an annexe, positions are added that each cost half a day of building, and you see that time back in your rental period. If you are later going to clean the roof tiles on another surface, count those positions in straight away.

The scaffold arrives as a complete set of loose parts counted beforehand, and such a stack needs room. Settle in advance where it may go down, since the strip beside the wall stays free for the set up and for your jerrycans. Book on a weekday before 15:00 and everything is ready the next working day, so booking long in advance is not needed to start your first coat on time. Put the delivery on a morning when you are at home yourself.

You pick a delivery date and a collection date yourself, and on coating work you let that choice depend on the forecast for the days after. Look for a run of a few dry days and have the parts come a day earlier, so the building does not eat a whole working day. Erecting stays your job, with the enclosed manual and the instruction video at hand, preferably with two people handing frames to each other. Reckon half a day for it, so do not put your delivery on your first coating day.

After the last coat you take the tower apart and we take it away again; you only have to lay the parts together somewhere the van can reach. Do that once the coating is hard enough, otherwise you walk over the deck boards with fresh colour under your soles. The amount for bringing and returning depends on your province and is listed including VAT with the costs of bringing and fetching, a figure worth putting beside your rental days before you book.

Every deck we let out answers to EN 1004 and carries a load class 3 rating, permitting 200 kg on each square metre of platform. On coating work you reach that sooner than you expect, because jerrycans weigh a good deal and you set them all in the same spot beside your crossing. Spread that weight over the whole deck, never stack all the cans in one corner and leave the rest of your stock below. What that class means in practice is set out at the explanation of this standard.

Make sure the castors are braked before anyone climbs on, move the set up only when empty and with nobody aboard, and put the work down in a strong wind. Wind counts double here: on a sloping roof you stand unsheltered and coloured mist blows far into the neighbours' garden. Extend the stabilisers again after every move and go along them at the start of each working day before anyone goes up. That check takes a minute and is the first thing you skip when coating waits.

Bear in mind that the standard covers the scaffold and not the roof surface. The moment you step over the gutter you are on tiles that turn slippery with coating and with dew, and there a guard rail no longer helps you. Arrange your own hold for that part, have someone watch from below and never work alone on a tiled roof. Keep the ground under the set up clear, because a lance or a jerrycan going over the edge drops straight down. The rest is at the rules for working safely at height.