Repairing roof tiles? Choose the right scaffold.

For repair work on a tiled roof at two storeys you take the Altrex RS52, the wide version with 135 cm of deck width. You are not carrying stacks up here, but you do need room to lay a tile down, to put your tile hook somewhere and at the same time to work bent forward without knocking into anything. Two of you also fit up top at that size. Which versions there are you see on the page about hiring a tower.

On this job it is not about a working deck you store material on. You take one or two roof tiles up with you and no more, because hauling half a pallet upwards is work for a complete renewal and not for a repair. What does count is that a deck 245 cm long is enough to reach two or three damaged spots beside one another from a single position without moving straight away. That saves you a quarter of an hour of hauling, braking and realigning per repair point.

The narrow RS51 at 75 cm stays possible when you are up there alone and the passage to the back is tight; it also rolls more easily along a garden path on your own. The MiTower does not reach a tiled roof at two storeys with its 6.2 metres, and the RS44 room scaffold manages 3 to 4 metres and belongs indoors, behind a door from about 70 cm. To see the models beside each other, look at the dimensions of the towers.

The height you need is set here by the highest lying damage point and not by the roof as a whole. If the broken tile sits in the bottom rows above the gutter, you get by with less than when there is also something just under the ridge. So look at the roof surface first with binoculars or with the zoom on your phone, and note per point roughly how high it lies. At two storeys you almost always end up at 8 to 12 metres.

When booking you state a working height and that figure lies higher than your deck. There is about two metres between them, because from the platform you still reach a good way upwards. If you want to get at a tile three rows above the gutter, count back: that tile minus two metres gives roughly the deck height you need. Always measure from the ground under the castors. How many frames such a build takes is set out under twelve metres of working height.

Choosing tight takes its revenge here in its own way. If you just fail to reach the damage point, the temptation is great to step onto the tiles from the top rail, and that is exactly where a few more break under your feet. So rather take a build that comes a good way above your highest damage point. On a roof that only begins above the second floor, add the storey heights one by one.

Because on a repair you slide along the whole roof, you are not looking at a single position but at a route. Walk that route before you hire: can you get an erected tower from the front elevation round to the side, or do you have to take it apart for that? A garden gate of eighty centimetres, a step up to the terrace or a pergola over the path decides it for you. On this job that is more often the bottleneck than the height of the roof.

The ground has to be sound over that whole route. On slabs and tarmac the set up rolls easily, but on grass, gravel or a shell path every move costs effort and the castors sink in as soon as it has rained for a day. Allow at every spot for the four stabilisers you have to set out again. A paved walkway along the wall is worth gold on this job. More about that stands in the explanation on uneven ground.

Look as well at what stands underneath the repair points. On this work shards and bits of mortar come down, and they land precisely where you put the tower. A conservatory, a shed roof, a carport or a parked car under the roof edge makes a position awkward to impossible. Put those points on a list together with the places where the roof tiles are broken, then you know beforehand how many positions are feasible, which spot you still have to clear and where you have to cover something.

Replacing a single broken tile takes a quarter of an hour, but that is not where your days go. The time goes into building up, into moving to the next point and into hunting for damage that stayed invisible from below. An average house therefore asks you to hire a mobile scaffold for two to three days. If the damage runs across several roof surfaces, each extra surface soon costs you half a day of building, aligning and stabilising again.

Build in slack, because this job is uncertain by definition. Only when you look along the rows at eye level do you see hairline cracks, shifted tiles and a sagged piece of ridge that you looked straight past from the street. That means extra points and sometimes a trip to the merchant for tiles that match yours, because an exact match is seldom in stock. Reckon as well on a day when it blows too hard to handle loose tiles at height.

Happily that slack is not dear. Only the first twenty four hours are charged at the full rate; on every day after it you get 95 per cent off, so an extra day hardly works through into the rental price you settle in the end. The rates per model and reach you find including VAT in the overview of hire prices. Booking tight costs you money instead, because a second booking means building again, aligning again and another round of transport.

From a deck of 245 cm you cover a good two metres of roof edge, and that is enough to do two or three tiles lying next to one another. If the next damage point sits five metres further along, there is nothing for it but to move. So work out beforehand which damage points you can group: two points three metres apart ask for a position in between, and that saves you a complete move with brakes off, stabilisers in, rolling and aligning again.

Take up only what you need each time: the spare tiles for that point, a tile hook, a hammer and whatever you use to fix the tile down. Lay the removed tile flat on the deck and not against the guard rail, because a tile falling from ten metres is a serious risk for anyone standing below. Work down the row from the top, so you can lift the tile above and slide the new one underneath without disturbing the rest of the row.

What people misjudge is that every damage point can ask for a position of its own. Four broken roof tiles spread neatly over the roof surface give four separate positions, while four tiles beside one another can be done from a single set up. So count your points before you book and reckon on one move of the tower per separate point. If a whole row turns out to need lifting, the character of the job changes and you read on at replacing roof tiles.

The tower reaches you in loose parts, as a counted and complete set. Decide beforehand where that stack may go, and keep the strip under the repair points free, because shards come down there the moment you start. Order on a working day and stay inside the 15:00 limit, and the van already calls round with the complete set on the next working day. That way you can get going shortly after a storm or a leak without waiting weeks first.

Which day the set is brought and which day it goes away again you decide yourself. On repair work that is pleasant, because only after the first inspection do you know how many points there are and how much time they cost. Let the parts arrive one day ahead of your first working day, then you can build at your ease and start fresh on the first point. That building is your share of the work, with the supplied manual and the instruction video within reach.

Once the last tile is in place, you take the tower apart and we put it back in the van. Lay the parts down somewhere the driver can reach and count them while you dismantle, then you are sure the set is complete before the van drives off. What the transport costs differs per province, and those amounts stand including VAT in the overview with costs for delivery, so you can set that figure beside your rental days.

You stand on a deck manufactured under EN 1004, in load class 3, which means 200 kg is allowed per square metre. On a repair you stay far under that, because you take only a few tiles up and some tools besides. Do stay alert as soon as somebody wants to pass a stack of twenty up, because fired roof tiles weigh a good deal together. What that class stands for you read back in the note on this scaffold standard.

The standing rules apply on short work too, precisely because you move so often. Brake the castors before anyone goes up, never roll the set up with a person or with material on it, and fold the four stabilisers out again after every move. That last one is what you skip quickest on a repair. Stop as well in a strong wind, because a loose tile catches far more wind in your hands than you would expect.

The danger that belongs specifically to this job comes from the material itself. A weathered tile breaks while you are lifting it and the shards go over the edge, so keep the zone below you clear and put a cone or a wheelbarrow there as a marker if need be. Do not step from the top guard rail onto the roof surface for that one tile, but move the tower a metre instead. And never work directly above somebody clearing up below. More rules stand at safe working at height.