Staining façade cladding? Choose the right scaffold.

Timber boards are seldom on the easy side of a house. More often it is a side elevation, a rear elevation or a gable above an extension, and the route runs past a fence or through a gate. That is why the Altrex RS51 at 75 cm is the model here: it gets to places where a wide tower jams, and you push it along on your own. Which builds go with which model is listed on the page for mobile scaffold hire.

Very little goes up with you: one tin of stain, a stirring stick, a broad brush for the face and a narrower one for the seams and the end grain. For that kit a wide deck is beside the point. What you do notice is the platform length of 245 cm, because it sets how many running metres of board you carry on across before you climb down and move. Every centimetre of length is a gain on this job, every centimetre of width is not.

A wide tower of 135 cm, the RS52, gives you less for staining than you would think. Two people on one deck get in each other's way lengthwise, and it is wiser for each to take an elevation of their own. If filler, abrasive paper and a vacuum have to go up alongside the stain, then that extra room does become welcome after all. For the approach face by face, read on at the page about staining a timber elevation.

Your highest point is the top board, and that usually finishes under the fascia or behind a bargeboard. Measure to there and not to the roof tiles, because the roof edge itself belongs to another job. If the cladding carries on up into a gable, count that peak in. Two storeys bring you to somewhere between 6 and 8 metres of reach, and with that figure in your hand you fix the build when you hire.

Your platform then lands somewhere between four and six metres above the ground. The difference with your reach is what you cover standing up: allow around 2 metres of reach with a brush in your fist. Keep the distinction clear, because the RS51 as a model handles 14.2 metres, and that number is about the structure and not about what ends up in your garden. Your build stays far lower, as you can see at a working height of six metres.

Choosing too low costs you more here than on other paintwork. Stand under the top row and you stain with your arm stretched up, the stuff runs down the handle into your sleeve and you get an uneven, streaky top edge that shows from the pavement. You also miss the full length of a board in one movement. Take half a metre too much rather than too little, and measure from the path where the wheels will stand, not from the terrace.

Timber elevations usually look out over the garden, and a good standing place is scarcer there than at the street side. Under your boards lie borders, a strip of gravel or grass that sinks after a shower. The four stabilisers point outwards at an angle and all four want something firm underneath, so put a paving slab or a stout board under each wheel where you need to. If the ground still slopes, the explanation about uneven ground gives you a workable answer.

Unlike insulation work, here you want to stand close in to the timber. The tip of your brush has to get into the seam between two boards and strike over the bottom edge, and that only works while the tower stays within arm's reach. Do keep enough air to avoid pressing the guard rail against a proud board. Around the foot you want a strip clear for tins, sheeting and a bucket of water, so you are not stepping over your own kit on the way down.

Sheet the ground under the stand with dust sheets or cardboard before you start. Stain is thin, it drips readily and it soaks into paving and decking boards just as well as into your elevation, and it does not come out again. Finally, walk round the obstacles that belong to a garden elevation: the water butt, an outside tap, the terrace canopy and the low branches of the hedge. Clear those away before the parts are delivered, not once your tower is half up.

The first question is not how many days you need but when those days are allowed to start. Stain finds its way into the grain, and that only happens in timber that is dry inside. If it has rained for a week, give the boards two or three sunny days to dry out again before you put the first coat on. So do not pin your rental period to a calendar date but to a window in the forecast.

Only then does the work itself count. A front and a rear elevation over two storeys, in two coats, come out at four to six rental days with the waiting already in that figure. The first coat has to have sunk in before the second may go on, and a shower within a couple of hours means you do that band again. Reckon on a half day to put the tower up and another to take it down.

That is exactly why booking generously is so attractive here. The whole rate covers your opening 24 hours, after which 95 per cent comes off every further day you add behind it. Two spare days for a turn in the weather therefore weigh next to nothing, while a tight booking leaves you with a half stained elevation and a second build later on. What cold and wet do to your planning is set out in the piece on hiring in winter.

A stained face gives away every interruption. So you work along the length of the boards, from one end grain to the other, and you keep the edge wet until you have reached the end of the plank. The awkward part is that a horizontal shiplap board nearly always runs longer than the 245 cm you face at one position. Decide in advance where you will stop, rather than finding out halfway along with a dripping brush and nowhere to put it down.

There are two workable answers. The first is to place the set-off deliberately on a vertical line: at a butt joint, behind a downpipe or against a corner trim, so the change falls away into something that is there anyway. The second is to carry on with two people in two positions side by side, with the second picking up the edge before it pulls. Moving the tower costs you five to ten minutes, and in that time an edge on a sunny elevation dries closed.

Work each stand from the top down and finish the full height of your position before you roll on. Anything that runs then lands on boards you have still to do. Take one tin up at a time and leave the rest below in the shade, because stain that warms up in the sun goes tacky. Do not underestimate the number of stands: eight metres of elevation already counts three to four positions, and with two coats you do every one of them a second time.

What turns up at your address is a counted set of loose frames, tubes and deck sections. Work out beforehand where that stack may go, and do not choose the strip under the cladding, because your sheeting goes there shortly. A driveway or a corner of the terrace works better. If your booking comes in before 15:00 on an ordinary working day, the set travels to your address the next working day and you can build that same afternoon.

You pick the date it is brought and the date it goes again, so let the delivery fall at the start of a dry spell. Put it a day before your first staining day and building does not eat into the weather you need. Assembly is down to you: a manual sits in the set and an instruction video runs through the order, and two people spend half a day on it. The step by step guide to building the tower runs through it all.

Dismantling is your work, collection is ours. Wait until the last coat has sunk in, or you will drag a frame past a board that is still tacky and see that smear on it all summer. Count the parts off as you take them apart and lay the lot together somewhere the van can pull up to. What the run to your province and back comes to is set out clearly at the delivery charges per province.

Load class 3 in EN 1004 tells you what your deck takes: two hundred kilos on every square metre. Staining rarely goes near it, because a tin of a few litres, a brush and yourself stay well under that limit. Only when someone stands with you and a box of sanding gear goes up does adding it up become worthwhile. With two of you above, spread the weight along the deck. What sits behind that standard is explained briefly in the article on this scaffold norm.

The fixed rules still hold on a quiet garden elevation. Put every wheel on the brake before you go up the ladder and never move the tower while anyone or anything is on it. After each move, fold the four supports out firmly again until all of them bear. When the wind gets up, put the work down: not only for the tower's sake, but because dust and grit settle into fresh stain and that board goes again.

The risk that belongs to this job is how thin the stuff is. Stain runs off your brush, down the handle and onto the platform, where it turns slippery without your seeing it happen. Lay cardboard down and replace it as soon as it feels wet, stand your tin in a tray or hang it from the guard rail in a bracket, and keep the strip below your deck clear of people. All the rules in one place are at the explanation of working safely at height.