Painting a bay window? Choose the right scaffold.

The measurement that counts at a bay window is the width of the strip beside the side face. Between the bay and the hedge, a low wall or the boundary there is often not even a metre left, and the pitch has to fit there with its stabilisers out. That is why the choice falls on the Altrex RS51, the model that comes out at only 75 cm wide. Survey that narrowest spot before you commit, because it governs your whole layout. Which reaches are available shows at the range of narrow mobile scaffolds.

The front face of a bay is usually two to three metres wide, so a 245 cm platform puts you in front of it in one go. The two side faces are a good deal narrower and each asks for a pitch of its own in which you use only part of that platform. That is not waste: you need the length to take the external corner and the piece of frame around it from one fixed spot without stretching.

The wide RS52 of 135 cm is mostly a millstone here. On the sides it often will not go between the bay and the boundary, and every time you have to get it round a corner you spend longer lifting than painting. If you work in pairs and a lot of material goes up, you could consider that width for the front face alone. The size difference between the models is laid out in the dimensions of mobile scaffolds.

At a bay window you seldom measure to the bay roof itself. That flat little roof sits around three metres, but the paintwork nearly always carries on: the frame of the floor above, the fascia of the bay roof, the cheeks and sometimes a stretch of wall up to the gutter. Take the highest point that goes in the colour as your measuring mark. If that brings you out between four and six metres, a reach of 6 to 8 metres sits comfortably around it.

That booked reach is your platform height with about 2 metres on top that you bridge standing with your arms up. At a bay you mentally take something off again, because you are not up against the surface: the bay springs sixty to ninety centimetres forward and pushes the tower away. What you win vertically you lose on the diagonal. So take the top of the range rather than the bottom, certainly if you are taking in the floor above as well. Otherwise look at working on the first floor.

Measure from the place your castors end up, not from the sill of the front door. In a front garden the paved path often lies a step lower than the doorstep, and a border again lies higher than the path. Get it tight and you find yourself at the top fascia of the bay roof with your arms stretched over a projecting edge, exactly where you need the most sight and the most control. The page on 8 metres of working height shows that build.

A bay window stands almost always in the front garden, and that makes the standing place harder than at a straight wall. For the front face you are usually on slabs or a path, but for the two side faces you end up in the border, on gravel or on grass. Put slabs or stout planks under the castors there, because a scaffold foot that sinks into wet garden soil while you work pulls the whole pitch out of true. Check as well whether a soakaway lies underneath.

Count on the four stabilisers splaying outwards at every pitch. At the front face that usually works; at a side face one of them sticks over the hedge, over the wall or over the neighbours' boundary. Walk that through beforehand and prune or move whatever is in the way, because you do not want to discover halfway that a leg cannot come out. How to set a pitch firmly when not everything is clear is in the piece on stabilising.

Look too at what sits on the bay itself. A drip mould, a projecting plinth or a sill that stands proud decides how close you can get. The same question applies to the downpipe on the corner and to the cables of a sun blind. Survey the clear space at the narrowest of the three places, because that decides which pitch you hire. If it will not fit there, you do that face from a lower setting and that costs you an extra build.

At a bay window do not count in square metres but in transitions. Three faces, two external corners, the underside of the bay roof, the top fascia, the cheeks and the frames with their junctions: those are all edges where you have to be precise, and edges cost time. The real painted area is perhaps twenty square metres, yet you are half a day on it per coat purely through the number of times you change posture.

Add the pitches to that. Three positions is the minimum, four or five is more realistic if you carry on above the bay as well, and every move costs you half an hour including the re-levelling. With sanding, a primer and two finish coats you land on four to five hire days. Rot in the cheeks brings repair with it and one more day of rental. An estimate per job you will find in the piece on how many hire days a job takes.

At a bay a generous booking costs you almost nothing. In your rental price only the first twenty four hours count at the full rate, and every day you stick behind that gets 95 per cent off. That means a booking of five days differs little from one of three, while you do get the calm to let a coat harden through before you touch in the corners. So plan the collection day behind the day you think you will be finished.

From a platform you cannot work round a corner, and at a bay window that is the heart of the planning. Finish every face right into the corner and stop there with a tight, wet edge. Begin at the side face that is least in view, then go to the front face and end with the second side face, so the visible join lands on the least conspicuous corner. The difference in colour between two pitches then stays invisible.

The bay roof itself is your biggest obstacle up high. As soon as you want to get past it, the scaffold stands half a metre or more off the wall and you are working over the little roof. Lay a sheet or an old rug on it first: every drop that falls comes down on that flat surface and stays there in plain sight. Make sure you have everything with you in one climb, because coming down at a bay usually means realigning the whole pitch again.

Moving is seldom done by rolling here. Getting from the front face to a side face often takes the upper frames off, because you have to bring the pitch round a garden wall or a border. Reckon on that in your day, and not on five minutes of pushing. What people underestimate is the number of small surfaces: the reveals of three frames, two corner beads and the underside of the little roof weigh more together than the big front face.

The parts come to your address as a complete, counted set and that stack needs room. A front garden with a bay in it is usually just too small, so choose a spot in advance: the drive, a piece of pavement beside the hedge or the garage at a pinch. Do not lay the frames in the border where the pitches are going, and not against the bay either, because that is precisely the timber you will be sanding first.

When the mobile scaffold arrives and when it is fetched again you fill in yourself at the booking. Order on a working day while it is not yet 15:00 and your order rides out the next working day, so the delivery can be planned tight against your starting date. For outside work at a bay you look at the forecast as you do it: a dry run of days is worth more than an early start, because a wet corner costs you a whole coat.

The rigging falls under your tasks. A manual goes along and an instruction film is ready, but we do not come and stand it up for you; with two people a pitch at this height takes about an hour. Once the last coat is on you take the lot apart and lay all the sections together, after which we come to fetch them. Want to skip the bringing? Then you can pick the set up yourself at Zeeburgerpad in Amsterdam, by appointment and at no cost.

A mobile scaffold from hire is built to EN 1004 and its platform belongs in load class 3: two hundred kilos per square metre. That applies to the platform and to nothing else. The little roof of the bay below you is not a working floor: thin roofing on light boarding, never meant to carry someone with a bucket. Setting a foot on it can easily cost you a leak above the bay windows. What the class involves you can read in the explanation of this standard.

The basic rules stand here too. Lock the castors before you go up, let nobody stand on the mobile scaffold while it is being rolled, leave no tin of paint on the platform when you move it, and get off it once the wind starts to pull. At a bay that last one applies sooner than you think, because the moment you rise above the little roof you also rise above the shelter of the hedge and the front garden. After every move, check that all four stabilisers press firmly on their ground again.

Two risks belong specifically to this job. The first is glass: a bay is window on three sides, and a scraper or a tin falling four metres goes straight through. The second is the temptation to step onto the bay roof for that one edge; do not, but move the pitch instead. Keep the path beneath you clear as well, since a front garden is after all the route to the front door. What else has been agreed you can read at working safely at height.