Washing a facade? Choose the right scaffold.

Washing a whole facade sends more up than you expect: a bucket of suds, a bucket of clean rinsing water, a bottle of soap, a soft brush on a pole and a cloth for the edges along the frames. So the model here is the wide Altrex RS TOWER 52, which gives you 135 cm across the deck. All that kit gets its own corner, and with two of you up top nobody has to step aside. The rest of what stands ready is in the range of mobile scaffolds for hire.

That width does cost you something on the way in. A set up of 135 cm will not pass every garden gate, nor along every narrow path beside the side elevation. So walk the route before you book, from the van to the wall. If it turns out too tight, the narrow RS51 at 75 cm takes over and you simply put a bucket down more often. For a front elevation on the street that never arises and you rent the wide deck without hesitating.

Your pace hangs on a different measurement in the end: the platform is 245 cm long. That is the width of the strip you fully soap and rinse in one set up before the wheels come off the brake. Extra width underfoot does not stretch that strip, but it does let you park the bucket of rinsing water outside your walking line, which saves you a wet shoe at every step. How the models compare in size is set out in the comparison of scaffold dimensions.

The highest point when washing a facade is almost always the band directly under the gutter, where the grime has sat longest of all. On a house of three living storeys that edge sits high enough for a reach of 8 to 12 metres, which is the working height you book. The platform itself then lands at 6 to 10 metres, because working height is platform height plus roughly 2 metres of reach. That figure is what you give when you reserve; the matching build is shown at ten metres of working height.

Measure from the level where the wheels will actually stand, not from your own front doorstep. If the front garden sits half a metre below the pavement, or the back path falls away towards the shed, you start lower than you thought and you need that half metre at the top. Where an extension juts out in between, measure on to the upper edge of the wall behind it and not to the flat roof you pass on the way up. Write the answer down before you book anything at all.

Booking too low shows up in the result. You end up scrubbing the top band with your arms above your head, the suds run down the pole into your sleeve and rinsing evenly stops working. What is left is a dirty band just under the gutter, exactly the spot you started this job for. That last metre then forces a second build on you anyway. Take the larger reach if you are in doubt; on a facade of three living storeys that is almost always right.

On this job bucket after bucket of water goes down the wall, and that weighs on the choice of pitch. On block paving or slabs it soaks away and the ground keeps carrying. On a lawn the patch under you turns into a mud bath within the hour, and the wheels sink in crooked the moment you go to move. If you cannot avoid the grass, lay firm boards or thick planks under the base and check after every move whether all four wheels still stand equally deep.

Four stabilisers splay out around the legs, and they claim square metres of their own. At a wash there is usually plenty in the way of that: the outside tap your hose is on, a water butt, a bike rack, a low hedge or a row of planters. Clear it before the van arrives, because shifting things halfway costs minutes per set up that you never earn back. If the ground is not level, the guidance on uneven ground gets you to a safe pitch.

Look over the boundary as well. Dirty rinse water does not stay neatly in your own garden: it runs towards the neighbours car and across the patio they have just swept. So stand the tower so the water drains away from all that, and sheet a car that cannot be moved. If part of the set up sits on the footway, leave room for people to pass and check what your council asks in your street.

The front of a terraced house of three storeys is generally three to four set ups wide. Per set up you spend about half an hour soaping, scrubbing and rinsing off, plus the time to move along and put the stabilisers out again. Seen that way a single elevation is one day of work and a short hire. Want to go all the way round, or add the side and the back, and you are at two days.

The build day comes on top of that; it costs half a day and you would rather not start the first strip afterwards. Beyond that, this work is weather sensitive in a different way from painting. In full sun the suds dry on the brick before you have rinsed them off and you keep streaks, and in frost wet work on a platform is simply a bad plan. Overcast, dry and still is the ideal combination for a wash, and that is what you book your days around.

So set your reservation a day wider rather than tighter. The full rate applies only to the first twenty four hours; every rental day after that has 95 per cent knocked off it, so a spare day barely costs you anything. What does work out expensive is a half clean wall on the morning the van turns up to collect. If you want to know how to judge such a period, the article on the number of rental days helps you on your way.

With 245 cm of deck under your feet you take a strip of just over two metres per set up, from the gutter down to the plinth. Soap that strip from the bottom upwards and work your way up, because suds running down over dry dirt leave tracks you never get out later. Rinsing goes the other way about, from the top down, steadily, so the dirty water travels to the ground in one continuous sheet and dries nowhere halfway.

Moving along belongs to this job more often than to any other facade work, so make a fixed round of it. Buckets go down first, because a half full bucket slops over and nothing may stay on the deck while you roll. Lay the garden hose along the direction of travel and never across underneath the frame. Then brake the wheels, put the stabilisers out again and only then carry the water back up. Four actions, in the same order every time.

Where most of the time leaks away unnoticed is the climbing itself. Fetching water, tipping water, forgetting soap, leaving the cloth below: add it up and you lose ten minutes per set up. So take everything you need in one go, and if you can, keep someone below for refills. The windows usually come along in the same pass, but with a squeegee and a dry cloth of their own. The page on washing windows at height takes that further.

The scaffold arrives in parts: standards, braces, platforms and wheels, counted and complete. Pick a dry spot for that stack beforehand, and keep it well away from the pavement or grass where all your rinse water will end up. A drive, a carport or a dry corner by the fence suits better. An order placed on a working day and in before 15:00 goes out for the following working day, which puts you on the wall a day later.

You choose yourself when the parts turn up and when they go away again. For a wash you look mainly at the forecast while doing so: overcast and dry, no frost, no strong wind. So put the delivery at the start of such a spell and the collection well behind it. If the weather turns, you slide those dates along with it. How much time the first day takes is shown in the step by step guide to erecting a tower, so you know when you can really begin.

Once you are done we come and collect the mobile scaffold again. You take it apart and lay the parts out complete on the spot where they were dropped. Let the tubes and platforms dry off before you stack them, and rinse soap residue away so no white marks dry on. Tick off as you dismantle whether you have it all back. What the run to your province and back costs is in the overview of delivery charges. You settle that amount once, for the trip out and the trip back together.

Your deck carries load class 3, which under EN 1004 comes down to 200 kg on every square metre. On wet work you fill that allowance faster than on dry work, because a bucket filled to the brim already weighs ten kilos. Two buckets, two people and a jerry can of soap add up sharply. Put the heavy items over a standard rather than in the middle of the field. How many buckets fit inside that limit is worked out in the article on the scaffold standard.

Beyond that, the usual rules of use apply to every build. Brake every wheel before anyone climbs on, never roll the frame with a person or with kit aboard, and stop working once the wind gets up. On wet work that limit is closer than you think, because with a gleaming wall in front of you and a hose at your feet you react more slowly. After every move, check that the four stabilisers press firmly on the ground again before you climb back.

The real danger on this job is under your shoes. A platform with soapy water on it is lethally slippery, so rinse it with clean water after every strip and wipe it dry afterwards. Keep the zone below clear, because a bucket bouncing off the deck lands hard. Look as well at the outside light and the connection point in the wall before you put water on them. The remaining agreements sit in the rules that apply to work at height.