Painting facade cladding? Choose the right scaffold.

For a timber elevation of two storeys the model is the Altrex RS51, 75 cm across. What decides it is not the room on the platform but the weight you shift about, because you move this tower dozens of times during the job: every coat sends you past all the positions again. A narrow build rolls on under one pair of hands and still fits through a gate to the rear elevation. You can weigh the models against each other on the page of mobile scaffolds in the hire fleet.

What travels up with you weighs more here than on staining work: a tin of paint, a roller tray, a roller with a handle, a brush for cutting in and a cloth. On a deck 245 cm long you can put all of that down without treading in it, provided you keep the tray at one end. That length also sets how many metres of cladding you cut in and roll out from one position before the edge pulls.

If two of you are working, the wide RS52 of 135 cm becomes interesting: one cuts in the seams, the other rolls along behind, and then you do not want to be squeezing round each other on a single deck. For a smaller run of boarding, or for cladding that sits indoors, the choice runs differently again; the page about painting interior boarding covers that case, where a shorter build and a lower stand usually do.

Your measuring point is the top board of the cladding, usually just under a fascia or behind a bargeboard. If a strip of fascia board sits above it that you are taking in the same go, count that into your height. Two storeys bring you to 6 to 8 metres of reach. That is the figure you give when you hire, and it holds for all three circuits you are going to make, because a second build halfway through the job is the last thing you want.

The deck itself hangs lower than the reach suggests, somewhere between four and six metres. The difference is what you cover standing, roughly 2 metres of reach with a roller on a short handle. Worth keeping apart: the RS51 goes to 14.2 metres as a model, but that is the limit of the structure and not the build you order. On this elevation you stay well under it and work from a low, solid stand you move quickly, as shown at a working height of 8 metres.

Half a metre too low punishes you three times here, because you make three circuits. Fall short of the top board and you roll it at full stretch, so the coat goes on thinner; with opaque paint that shows up later as a lighter band under the fascia. Measure from the level the wheels will stand on and not from the terrace, because gardens fall away more often than you think. For an elevation of two storeys, check what working at first floor level demands.

The stand position is not a one off choice on this job. You come back to every spot three times, so a position that stands crooked or falls just short of the corner costs you shuffling on every circuit. Walk the whole elevation before the first coat and divide it into positions that join up neatly, with the changeovers at a butt joint or a downpipe. Write that division down, because by the third circuit you will not remember where you stopped.

The ground has to last the whole period, and that asks more of it than a one day job does. Paving and a driveway carry well; grass and borders sink under the wheels after a few showers. The four stabilisers splay outwards and all four should bear, including after the tower has been trundled to and fro for a week. What you can do to keep it steady is set out in the explanation of anchoring a tower.

Keep the strip under the cladding free for your covering as well. With opaque paint you lay sheeting or dust sheets out past the drip line, and it stays there as long as you are working. So before the first circuit, clear away whatever need not stand there for the coming days: planters, the water butt, furniture and bikes. If part of the build stands on the pavement, leave room to walk past and tell the neighbours, because you are sharing that footway all week.

Count your rental days in circuits, not in square metres. On bare or patched timber you start with sanding and a primer, and two opaque coats go over that. That is three or four runs along the same route past the same positions, with the same climb each time. For a front and a rear elevation over two storeys that brings you to six to eight days of hire, and that is a realistic estimate rather than a generous one. So measure your elevation out in positions before you fix a period.

Between two coats there is waiting time you cannot shorten. How long you have to leave it is written on the tin of your paint system and depends on the temperature and the humidity that day. Two coats in one day is therefore rare with opaque work. The weather adds to it: an elevation in the morning sun is wet with dew, and on a cold evening nothing dries at all. Let your period run from the build day to the morning you take everything apart dry.

Over a long period like that, the way the rental price is built up works in your favour. The opening day is charged in full; after it 95 per cent of that rate falls away, so the ninth day costs barely more than the eighth. Two spare days behind your planning are the rule here rather than the exception, and they rescue the schedule if a wet week lands in it. The difference between reckoning by the day and by the week is set out in the piece on daily and weekly periods.

Each position gives you 245 cm of cladding, and you finish that completely before you roll on. Start at the top, cut in the seams, bottom edges and end grain with the brush, then lay the face off while that edge is still wet. Do it the other way round and you drag the brush through a rolled coat, and the brush marks sit in it as a different texture once it dries. More about tackling a whole elevation is in the article on painting elevations.

Number your positions and keep track of which coat sits where. That sounds excessive until you are halfway through the second circuit looking at an elevation where everything appears the same: one skipped position only shows once the paint is dry, and then you are facing a fourth circuit. Work every circuit in the same direction as well, always left to right for instance, so your overlaps keep falling on the same vertical lines and thin patches do not pile up in changing places.

Take up what you need for that position and no more: the tray filled halfway, a roller, a brush and a cloth. The rest stays below under a lid. The number of moves on this job is systematically underestimated. Eight metres of elevation counts three to four positions, so with three coats you trundle that tower back and forth a good ten times, quite apart from the second elevation at the back. Allow five to ten minutes per move and you can see where your rental days go.

You receive the tower as a complete set of loose parts, counted piece by piece. Pick a place for that stack in advance where you can do without it for a week, and that is not the band under the elevation where your sheeting will lie. A driveway, a garage path or the corner of a front garden does better. An order placed on a working day, before 15:00, puts the set at your address the next working day.

Both dates, the one it comes and the one it goes, are yours to pick, and here they hang on a forecast for a whole week rather than a single day. Have the tower brought a day earlier than your first coat, then building does not eat your dry hours. You build it yourself, with a manual in the set and an instruction video showing the steps; two people need half a day for it. The step by step guide to assembly runs through the order.

When you have finished, you dismantle it yourself and we come and take it away. Only do that once your last coat has properly hardened: a frame brushing a fresh board leaves a mark you can only remove with a fourth circuit. Simply count off what you have in your hands while you take it apart and put everything down where the van can get to it. The cost of the run to your province is listed at the delivery charges per province.

Two hundred kilos per square metre is what your deck is made for, and that is load class 3 within EN 1004. On opaque paintwork you get closer to that than most people expect: a full tin, a filled roller tray, two people and a box of sanding gear add up faster than one tin does. So leave the stock on the ground and take up only what you will use at that one position. More about the standard is in the explanation of loading and weight.

Because you reposition dozens of times, the fixed rules come round often here. Lock the wheels before you climb on, never move the tower with a person or a filled tray aboard, and check after every move that the four supports bear again. If the wind picks up, stop: paint carries as a fine mist over the neighbour's car, and with a roller handle in one hand you have only the other left to hold on with.

What plays an extra part on this job is time. The tower stands at your house for a week or more, so people get used to it and walk underneath without thinking. Fence off the zone under your deck while you work, even in your own garden, and clear the platform at the end of every day. A tray knocked over on a slippery deck is the hazard you make yourself. The rules in one place are at working at height.