Painting the roof edge? Choose the right scaffold.

On roof edge paintwork you pick the RS52, the version with 135 centimetres between the uprights. Up top you carry rather more than a brush: a tin of primer or topcoat, a small pot for the finishing, abrasive paper, masking tape in two widths, a cloth and a screwdriver for tapping back proud nail heads. On a narrow deck you put all of that in your own walking line. Which versions else stand ready is shown under the mobile scaffold range, with the builds each type allows.

There is a second reason why wide works pleasantly here. Paint must not tip over and must not stand in your way, and you want half a metre in front of your feet so you can step back and judge what you have just laid on. At 135 centimetres that works; at 75 your heels meet the guard rail as soon as you move backwards. The slim version stays interesting only when the parts have to go through a tight gate to reach the back garden.

Do not confuse the model with the build you choose alongside it. The model settles how wide your deck is and how much you can put down; the build settles how high you come out. With the same RS52 you can take a low stance for a garage and a high one for the roof edge of a house. So fill both fields in separately when you reserve, because a wrongly ticked build means being half a metre short on the first morning. Full sizing per type sits in the survey of dimensions and measurements.

The highest point of this job lies above the timber itself. The paint line ends at the top against the trim or against the lowest row of tiles, and you have to be able to see that seam to work neatly up to it. So measure to the upper rim of the trim, not to the underside of the edge timber. On two storeys that puts you on a build with a reach of 8 to 12 metres. Begin at the paving where the castors land, since a falling drive shifts your whole sum.

That working height is not the same as the height you stand at. On top of the deck height comes about two metres of reach, and that total is what you state when you reserve. For paintwork along the roof edge you would rather pick, within that range, a stance where your eyes come just above the paint line. Then you look down on the seam instead of straight at it, and you see at once whether the tape lies tight and whether paint has crept underneath.

Choose too low and you paint the topmost centimetres by feel. That is precisely where the junction with the zinc or the tile sits, and precisely where every blemish shows from street level. On top of that, paint from an upward pointing brush runs down the handle into your sleeve. Reserving a stance higher costs you little; repainting because the top rim came out uneven costs you half a day. The page on working at 9 metres shows what goes with it.

Where you put the setup on this work decides not only whether you can reach, but also what happens underneath. Paint dripping off a brush falls straight down, and at many houses that is exactly where the neighbour's car, a bike shelter or the hydrangeas stand. Move what can be moved, cover what has to stay and warn the neighbour before the parts arrive. That is a one minute conversation which saves you an awkward afternoon.

Beyond that the usual demands on a standing place apply. The castors want a level, load bearing surface, and the four stabilisers must be able to come out fully on every side. Along a roof edge you often run into a sloping garden store, a low shed or a terrace canopy that falls just inside that spread. Walk your route beforehand and note per side what has to go. If the paving is sinking, look at ground that is not level.

When you mark out your standing places, allow for the overhang. If the roof projects a long way past the brickwork, the build stays further from the wall and you reach the edge with a longer arm. Go for a little extra height then rather than a little extra distance. Does your house front straight onto the street? Ask the council whether the setup may stand on the pavement, and keep a walking route clear for people passing.

The paint itself goes quickly; the preparation and the masking do not. A roof edge is old timber with gaps, nail heads and patches of loose paint, so you sand, fill and dust off before anything wet goes on. After that you mask the trim and the bottom tile row, metre by metre, and along a roof edge that goes slower than along a flat wall. On a mid terrace the preparation alone soon fills a whole day, after which each coat asks half a day to a day.

Add the waiting to that. Between two coats the previous one has to be dry and sometimes lightly rubbed down, and that drying happens at the pace of the weather rather than yours. A cold morning with dew on the timber is lost time, and so is an afternoon with the sun full on the elevation and the paint closing up too fast. Count on three to five hire days for an ordinary house, and put the awkward elevation early in that run.

Booking roomily costs strikingly little here. The opening 24 hours are settled at the full amount, and from the second hire day onward 95 per cent of that rate disappears. Slotting in a spare day for a shower is therefore almost free, while booking too tightly means stopping with half a coat on. How to judge such a period is explained under the number of days you need; every rental price sits on the page with prices.

Per setup you finish 245 centimetres of roof edge, and on paintwork that is a more telling figure than on other jobs. You do not want to stop in the middle of a stretch: where you leave a wet edge and paint into it later, a visible join appears. So work the whole length of a standing place from top to bottom and put your overlap at a sensible point, such as a joint in the timber, a downpipe or a corner of the house. The only visible boundary then falls where something already sits.

Take up per stance what fits into those 245 centimetres and no more. Half a tin handles better than a full one, because it weighs less and does not slop over the rim when your hip brushes the guard rail. Stand the tin on a board or in a tray with raised sides, never loose on the deck. Tape, cloth and abrasive paper live in your trouser pockets, so the floor stays clear and you do not trip over your own kit.

What people underrate is the number of standing places. Thirty metres of roof edge already means twelve setups per coat, so with three coats you are on the same spots thirty six times. Every move costs time, every move the build has to come level again, and every move you walk the stabilisers. That is exactly why your hire period runs longer than the hours with a brush in hand. If you take in the fascia boards as well, do them per standing place rather than in a separate round.

All the parts reach you loose and counted, and you point out where they may lie. Choose a patch of ground you will not be using while painting, because right under the roof edge you want room for your paint kit and your dust sheet. Get your order in before 15:00 on a working day and delivery follows on the next working day. Which date that becomes, and when everything leaves again, you state yourself when reserving.

The building we leave to you. A manual is included and an instruction video shows the order of assembly; with a second person on hand you are busy half a day before the first setup stands. So do not plan that build on the morning you meant to start sanding. For outdoor paintwork it is also wise to tie your delivery day to a dry spell, so you can go straight into the preparation instead of waiting.

Once the last coat is on, you take the build apart and we load the parts again. See that everything lies complete and reachable and that nothing wet can come against it; a guard rail resting on a freshly painted end grain leaves a streak you will spot later. What bringing and returning costs in your region you find under the delivery rates per province, so you can set that beside your hire days while you are still planning the period.

Every deck in the hire fleet belongs to load class 3 and therefore holds 200 kg per square metre, as EN 1004 lays it down. On paintwork you rarely come near that, because a tin and a handful of tools weigh little. Stand up there with two of you, though, with a box of filler beside you and a bucket of sand someone hauled up as ballast, and it adds up faster than expected. Worked examples sit under load and weight on a tower.

Nothing changes about the fixed rules: castors locked first and only then up, no moving at all while a person or material is on board, and work down as soon as it really starts to blow. On this paintwork that wind limit sits lower than you would think, since paint drifts and dries in streaks. After every move walk the stabilisers and check the build is still level before you carry your tin up; a pavement with a fall goes wrong faster than a garden path.

The real dangers on this job are small and everyday. Spilt paint makes a deck lethally slippery, and a toppled tin takes half an afternoon of cleaning and sometimes the neighbours' pavement with it. Working with your head tipped back leaves you unsteady after an hour, so build in short breaks. Keep the zone under the build clear and put something eye catching in it. The full list of rules sits under working at height.