Insulating a facade? Choose the right scaffold.

The Altrex RS51 is the slim version in our fleet: 75 cm across, and in its heaviest form this model climbs on to 14.2 metres of working height. For insulation over two storeys you stay well under that with a build of 6 to 8 metres. Narrow works in your favour here, because the delivery route usually runs along a path beside the house, and with a board under your arm you would rather not share that passage with a broad base.

There is a second reason to keep the frame small. On this job you deliberately set the tower some way off the wall so the insulation package fits in between. Every centimetre the build is wider pushes the feet further into the garden or the pavement. On the deck of 245 cm you will not lay down more than a bucket of adhesive, your notched trowel and a knife anyway, since boards stay below and go up one at a time.

You only hire the wide RS52 of 135 cm when two people stand on the deck together and you want to pull the reinforcing layer in one continuous movement. That saves joins in the mortar, but it costs you room at the foot and it makes moving slower. Anyone working alone gets further with the slim one, and moves it in half the time. Which build belongs to which model you can read back on the page about hiring mobile scaffolds.

The highest point of an insulation job is where the top row of boards meets the roof edge or dies into the soffit. That is what you measure to, and not the ridge. Above the deck you still work about two metres comfortably, so a wall finishing at seven metres asks for a platform around five. That small sum settles which build you state when you hire and how many frames end up being delivered to you.

Measure from the lowest place where you still fit insulation, not from the floor indoors. The start profile often sits well below ground level or just above the plinth, and in a garden falling away towards the fence that zero differs per side of the house. Take the side with the biggest fall as your starting point, because thirty centimetres at the foot costs you exactly those thirty centimetres at the top. The build to match is laid out at eight metres of working height.

Choose too tight and you get stuck at precisely the awkward part. The top row of boards has to be fitted round the roof edge, with a closing profile and sometimes an adapted soffit finish, and that is work you want to do at eye level rather than with your arms above your head. Reckon too that this top row asks for the most cutting and fitting. In doubt on a wall of two storeys, sit a notch higher.

The first question on an insulation job is not where the tower stands but how far off the wall it stands. Measure the thickness of your boards, add the reinforcing layer and the render, and keep a workable hand's breadth on top of that. That sum is your gap. Set the build closer and halfway through the first row of boards you are pressing your knees against your own insulation, and the lot has to be done again.

Because of that you need more ground at the foot than on other facade work. The four stabilisers stand further out than the base itself, and that spread comes on top of the gap you just measured. Around a house that often means borders, a bed of shrubs or a garden path have to give way for a while. On grass or loose soil put road plates or stout boards under the wheels; how that works sits in the explanation about an uneven surface.

Think about storing your boards as well. They are light, large and sensitive to wind, so a loose stack behind the tower blows across the garden at the first gust. Lay them flat, out of the wind and covered, within walking distance of the build but outside the zone the stabilisers claim. The same goes for the bags of dry mortar, which must catch no rain while you are working. Do not put the stack directly under your position either, since everything you drop lands there.

An insulated wall comes about in layers that wait for one another. First the start profile is set and the boards are bonded, then the fixings once the adhesive grips, next the reinforcing mortar with mesh, then a base coat and finally the finish. Every step has its own waiting time, and that waiting runs on whether you are up on the tower or not. For one elevation of two storeys you therefore reach five to eight rental days quickly. Budget three and you will certainly be squeezed.

The weather stretches that period further than on dry work. Fresh mortar wants no frost, no driving rain and no full midday sun, because in all three cases the layer dries or sets wrongly. In spring and autumn almost every insulation job therefore slips once. So plan your rental period not around the days on which it just about fits, but around a block in which you can absorb a couple of setbacks without redoing your whole schedule.

Happily an overrun barely shows in what you pay. Only the opening twenty four hours carry the full rate; from there on ninety five per cent drops off every rental day that follows, which puts a fortnight far closer to a single week than you would expect. For insulation that is exactly the right nudge: better to book generously than to hunt for an extension halfway through the reinforcing layer. More on this sits in the comparison between hiring by the day or by the week.

One set up puts a strip of wall of a good two metres in front of you, the length of the 245 cm deck. Insulation boards are laid in half bond, so your rows run on across the edge of that strip. Work each set up over its full height and let the side of every row end deliberately ragged, so the next strip drops neatly into it. A straight cut vertical joint over the whole height of the wall is precisely what you do not want.

Boards go up singly, not as a stack. Someone below hands them over, you take them and bed them, and that rhythm sets how fast you get on. Move with an empty deck: take the bucket, the trowel and the loose boards off before you release the brakes, because half a pallet aboard makes the build top heavy. On the reinforcing layer, plan the move at a natural stop in the mortar, and put the brakes back on before you pick up the first board.

What holds insulation up is not the flat fields but the edges. Window reveals, sills, the junction at the meter cupboard and the passage of your downpipe each cost more time than a whole row of boards. Count those places separately in your planning and set your positions so you can reach them easily. Keep a separate stock of narrow strips and profiles for them too. If you go on to apply the render, you use the same division.

A complete, counted set of parts arrives with you; erecting belongs to your side of it and happens with the printed manual and the video to hand. Find a spot for that stack in advance which does not clash with the pallets of insulation material, because both want room and the boards must not end up under the tubes. Whatever is booked on a working day and lands with us before 15:00 goes onto the van for the next working day, so planning far ahead is not needed.

Which date the set pulls up and which date it goes away again are yours to fill in, and for insulation work you tune that to your material. Let the scaffold parts come before the boards are unloaded, then the build already stands when the lorry with insulation arrives and you need not thread between two stacks. Half a day between the two deliveries is enough for that. Look at the outlook while you do: a week with night frost or steady rain is no week to start in.

At the end of your job we collect the set again, and you take it apart into loose parts on the spot where they were delivered. Do not do that on the day the last coat of render is still wet, because a knocked corner means repainting a wall that had just been finished. Plan the dismantling a day later. What you pay for bringing and collecting differs per province and is stated at the cost of delivery.

Load class 3 under EN 1004 caps what a square metre of deck may carry at 200 kg. On insulation work you reach that sooner than when painting, because adhesive mortar is heavy and buckets pile up. Add yourself, your helper, two full buckets and a tub of reinforcing mortar together and you sit higher than expected. What that class means for what you load sits in the explanation about weight on a mobile scaffold.

On this job the wind is the boss of your planning. An insulation board is in effect a sail, and that becomes true the moment you pick it up to set it on the wall. If it freshens, put the work down and store the loose boards rather than carrying on. Otherwise the ordinary rules stand: block the wheels first and only then go up, never roll the build along while anyone or anything is still aboard, and check the four stabilisers again after each move.

Under the tower it is busier on insulation work than on other facade jobs. Someone stands handing boards up, bags of mortar lie about and an extension lead runs to your mixer. Keep that zone tidy and never work above anyone's head while cutting, because a trimmed strip of board comes down without warning. Agree that your helper steps back the moment you let go of something, and collect offcuts in a bucket. The full rules of use sit at the requirements for working at height.