Maintaining a facade? Choose the right scaffold.

The RS52 out of the Altrex range measures 135 cm across and runs on to 14.2 metres of working height in its heaviest form. For a service round along three storeys you settle on 8 to 12 metres out of that range. On this job the width is no luxury, because you do not take a single tool up but very nearly half a workbench: a sealant gun with cartridges, a tin of paint and a brush, abrasive paper, a brush, cloths, screwdrivers and a bucket for waste.

Anything left lying below costs you a climb. On a bay two metres wide you often carry out four or five different operations during a service, and whoever goes down for each of them loses a quarter of an hour per bay. On a deck 245 cm long you can spread that whole list out and still keep a walkway. Working as a pair, one can seal while the other touches up the paintwork. Over a full round that easily saves a working day.

For the side the wide build cannot reach you hire the slim RS51 at 75 cm as well. On a mid terrace or a building with an alley beside it that is usually the back. Managing agents therefore often split the round in two: the street side on the wide build, the rear on the narrow one. Note down at which bay you change over. What else to arrange beforehand is listed in the checklist for hiring a mobile scaffold.

On a maintenance round the highest point rarely sits in the masonry itself. It is the gutter brackets, the end grain of the fascia and the top window junction that you have to reach, and those lie just below or right on the roof edge. From the deck you stand on your arms take you about two metres higher, so subtract that and you know the platform height this round needs. With the gutter at ten metres you want a deck at around eight.

Put your tape on the paving where the wheels will end up, and write the answer in your log. That saves you half a morning next season, because you then know at once which build to reserve and how many frames will be brought. If the back garden sits lower than the pavement, note both values separately and hire on the lower of the two. The build that goes with it is drawn out at ten metres of working height.

Pick too low and you skip exactly the part where maintenance is needed most. Rainwater runs down past the roof edge, so that is where the decay in sealant, timber and pointing begins. A round in which the top metre is missing gives you double work next year, and sometimes a repair that timely attention would have prevented. Hesitating on a facade of three storeys, go a build higher and leave the top deck unused if you must.

Anyone who goes over a wall every year gains time by fixing the standing positions. On the first round decide where the build goes for each bay, mark those points with a slab, a peg or a chalk line and put them in your log. At the next service you simply roll the tower back to position three without measuring again, and you know in advance which bays you will finish in a day. That also makes your rental period far easier to predict.

At every standing position all four stabilisers need to open out completely, and that spread runs wider than the base itself. Go along the row of positions first and see what is in the way: a wheelie bin, a patio table, the outside tap, a rainwater pipe with a leaf trap, or a shed built against the wall. Whatever you move once you only have to put back next time round. Write those obstacles into the log as well, by position number.

The season decides how those spots behave. In autumn the lawn under the back wall is soft and wet leaves lie on the slabs; in spring the borders are just filling out. On soft ground put stout boards under the wheels of the scaffold and note per position whether that was needed. A year later you then know which spot asks for extra preparation. Ground that falls away is dealt with in the guidance on an uneven surface.

Work the round out in bays rather than in square metres. A wall twelve metres wide yields about six standing positions at bays of a good two metres, and per position you are easily half a day checking and touching up over three storeys. Add the building and the dismantling to that, and a complete service on one elevation comes out at four to six rental days. On a building with two sides that all but doubles.

Inside those days sit pauses you cannot make up. Fresh sealant wants to cure before you paint over it, touched up paint has to be dry before the second coat, and a brushed clean patch has to dry off before you judge whether more is needed. The season comes on top: with night frost or steady rain a service slides a few days without apology, even though the tower stands ready. Plan therefore in whole weeks rather than in loose working days.

The tariff helps you there. That first twenty four hours is the day you really pay for; after it ninety five per cent comes off each rental day, so a round that slips from four days to six hardly changes your budget. Hiring too tightly means stopping halfway through bay four and pushing the rest to next year. How to size such a period up beforehand is set out in the article on the length of your rental period.

A deck 245 cm long corresponds exactly to one bay on your route, and that division carries your whole plan. Number the bays from left to right, tape the list of operations to the guard rail and work the same order on every bay: first look from top to bottom, then the sealant, then the rubbing down and painting, then the gutter and the brackets. Reverse the order each time and by the sixth position you forget what happened on the first.

Moving belongs at the end of a bay, not halfway through. Take the trays, the sealant gun and the loose tins off the deck, drop the build to its lowest setting if you have time for that, and only then roll on to the next number. Set the brakes afterwards and swing the stabilisers out again before anyone climbs. Cross the finished bay off in your log straight away, or on a long round you lose count of where you are.

What people misjudge is the temptation to push small defects forward. A hairline crack in a sealant joint or a bare patch on a window sill looks trivial, yet those are exactly the places that ask for real repair next season. The strength of a fixed service lies in being consistent rather than fast, which is also why you hire a day longer rather than skip a bay. If one bay is clearly out of step, plan it as a separate job, for example repairing the facade.

What pulls up is a set of loose parts, counted and complete. Point out a fixed unloading spot on your ground, preferably the same one as last year, so the driver knows where to be and the parts do not land on the route to your first position. A reservation that is complete on a working day and beats 15:00 puts those parts with you the working day after. A service week you almost forgot to plan is therefore still rescuable.

You give the arrival day and the return day yourself, and on a recurring service that is the heart of your planning. Put the delivery on the Friday before your service week, then you build calmly over the weekend and start on bay one on Monday. Because spring and early autumn are the busiest periods, fixing things early matters more here than on a rush job. Erecting is your task; the manual and the video show you the order.

After the last standing position we collect the set again, once you have dismantled it and stacked it complete on the unloading spot. Count the parts while you take it apart and you need not think about that on collection day. Note in your log how long the dismantling took, so your next round adds up better. What bringing and collecting costs depends on your province and is found at the charges for delivery and collection.

The deck carries 200 kg per square metre, the limit load class 3 holds to within EN 1004. On a service round you come closer to it than you think, because you stand there as a pair, with a tool box, a few tins of paint, a bucket of stripped out old sealant and sometimes a can of cleaning fluid. Add that up once before you begin, and spread the heaviest items along the length of the deck. What that figure rests on is looked up in the note on the scaffold standard.

The standing agreements hold on routine work too. Brakes on the wheels before the first foot touches the rung, no person and no material aboard while the build rolls, and stop when the wind gets up. Check at every new bay that the stabilisers stand firm again. With six positions in a day that is the same action six times, and it is precisely there that sloppiness creeps in. Let one person take that check on permanently.

The particular risk of a recurring service is familiarity. You know the wall, you know where the awkward corner is, and you therefore work faster than you would on an unfamiliar building. On top of that a maintenance deck is full of loose items your foot can catch. Tidy up per bay and keep the zone under the build clear, certainly when residents or colleagues pass along the wall. The wider rules sit at working at height.