Washing glass? Choose the right scaffold.

For washing glass the RS51 of 75 centimetres is usually the best pick: narrow, light and quickly in position. You need almost nothing up there, only a bucket, a squeegee and a scrim, so the extra floor of a wide version is paid for in weight you have to roll ten times a day. This width also still passes a border, a bike rack or the thin path beside the house, and that is exactly where most windows are. Look through the whole choice in our range of mobile scaffolds.

Where your house stops below six metres and you are on your own, the MiTower is a pleasant alternative. It is a one-person model reaching 6.2 metres of working height that you build and shift single-handed, which on a lap past every window is precisely what you are after. For higher panes, or for two people at once, you end up back at the ordinary tower. The difference between the two is spelt out in this comparison of both models.

The wide 135 centimetre version is what you hire when you are doing more than washing glass: going over the frames as well, dusting the shutter boxes, or working in pairs. Then room is suddenly needed for two buckets, cloths and tools. As long as it stays at panes, the narrow stand wins because you can move it alone and need call nobody in. A room scaffold is unsuited to this job, being meant for indoor work and never reaching an outside pane.

The figure you enter is the platform height with the two metres your arms still cover added to it. For washing glass at a house of two storeys, 6 to 8 metres brings you level with the head of the highest windows. Note that you do not have to measure to the roof edge: it is the top of the glass and the frame round it that matters, and that often saves you a section. What goes with it is explained on the page about eight metres of reach.

Choose a shade wide rather than too sharp. Stand just too low and you only get the upper corners with arms outstretched, and that is exactly where streaks and forgotten edges come from. You also lean sideways sooner than is sensible. Half a metre of extra height costs you little in the hire, whereas a second lap past the same windows costs you half a day. At a dormer window or an elevation with a gable, measure separately to that highest point.

Start the measurement under the castors at ground level and so not at the floor indoors. A back garden lying a step lower than the terrace shifts your whole calculation, and you usually notice that only when you are up there stretching. So before reserving, walk every elevation you will be washing with a tape and note the highest frame per side. In doubt at a third storey, look at the height of a second floor before you pick a scaffold.

On a wash you are never long in the same place, and so it is not one position that counts but your whole route. Walk that route beforehand: under the front windows there is often a border of planting, at the side a wheelie bin or a bike rack, and round the back you pass a terrace with a step up. Everything you have to move on the way costs you time again on every lap, so clear that whole strip in one go before you start on the first pane.

Under the stand you need room at all four corners for the stabilisers, which splay outwards. At windows in particular that gets tight, because the garden furniture or a planter stands just where such a leg comes down. Put your bucket in the same spot beside the feet each time as well, so you are not hunting for it at every move. How to level up in a garden on a slope you can read in the explanation about uneven ground.

Think about water, too. An outside tap with a hose reaching behind the house saves you a great deal of carrying with full buckets, which is what makes this job heavy by mid-afternoon. Where the tower ends up half on the pavement, leave a clear way for passers-by and no wet patch for someone to slip on. At a flat or in a shared garden, ask the neighbours or the owners' association for permission in advance.

Washing all the panes of a family house is a day's work in itself, often only a morning if you press on. What governs the planning is the building and the dismantling: together they take half a day, and you do not then want to do every window the same day as well. For a normal wash you therefore book the mobile scaffold for two days, with the first day for building and the front, and the second for the rest of the house.

Take an extra day if you want to pick up more in the same hire period. Plenty of people also do the frames, the shutter boxes or the glass of a conservatory, and that mounts up faster than expected. Where there is limescale or cement haze on the panes, it is no longer a wash but heavy cleaning work on glazing, and for that you hire the tower a few days longer. Rain plays its part too: washing in a shower achieves little.

An extra hire day barely shows in the rental price. The full rate is charged over the first twenty-four hours only, and everything you add behind it goes with ninety-five per cent off. Reserving one generous period therefore works out better than two short hires for the same house, and you have air at once for a day that disappoints. What a sensible term is for a job like this you can check in the piece on day hire against week hire.

For the lower windows you need no scaffold at all. With a washer on a telescopic pole you reach the ground floor comfortably standing on the grass, and part of the first storey too, certainly where no border is in the way. Where it goes wrong is higher up: at that distance you cannot see whether the corners are really clean, you never get the head of the frame dry, and bird mess or resin drops do not come away by feel. For those windows you hire a tower.

Once you are up, the floor of 245 centimetres sets your rhythm. Per position you generally do two windows, three where the panes are narrow, and then you shift. On an average house that comes to ten or fifteen moves for a full lap. So take everything up in one go: bucket, squeegee, scrim, a dry cloth and a small scraper. Every time you have to climb down for something forgotten, you make that climb for nothing and your lap drags on.

Moving goes like this: bucket off the floor, yourself down, brakes off, one window width along, brakes on, walk round the stabilisers and up again. That costs you a minute or two each time, and that is exactly why you want to hire a light stand for this job. Never reach for the next window hanging off the guardrail to save a move. If you are also doing the glass of a conservatory, allow for a different standing place.

The tower reaches you as a full set of separate components, counted before loading. For a short job like this the delivery day matters: have the parts come the day before you wash, then the stand is ready and you begin at the first window in the morning. Point out in advance where the components may lie, preferably on the drive and not in the border you have to pass along with the tower. Whatever reaches us by 15:00 on a working day is on the road the next working day.

The date of bringing and the date of fetching you choose yourself while reserving, and in between you set the pace. Building you do yourself: that takes two people half a day and a manual is in the delivery, along with a film showing the sequence. Living near the capital, you may also collect the set without charge, by appointment, at Zeeburgerpad. For most people the convenience of delivery easily outweighs the fuss of a trailer.

Once the last window is squeegeed you take the stand apart and pile the components in one place; the fetching we arrange for the day you chose when you hired. Dry the tubes off before you stack them, because that saves wet marks on your paving and it makes the handover go a good deal faster. What bringing and fetching costs in your province you can look at beforehand at the overview of delivery charges.

Every mobile scaffold from our hire fleet may carry two hundred kilos per square metre, which is called load class 3 within the EN 1004 standard. On washing glass you come nowhere near it: you, a bucket of water and a few cloths stay well under that limit. That does not make this work safe by itself, because the risk here lies not in weight but in water. A floor with soapy water on it is slippery, and you usually notice at your first step sideways.

So work with a bucket that will not tip over easily, wipe up spills at once and keep your shoes dry. Block the castors before you take the first rung, and release them again only when you have both feet on the ground. Never move the stand with the bucket still up top, because it will certainly go over. Walk round the stabilisers after every move. The remaining rules you will find at the agreements for working at height.

Watch above all for the urge to reach on this job. A window just out of range seems not worth a move, and precisely at that moment somebody leans over the guardrail with a wet squeegee in hand. Rather shift once more. Stop in a hard wind as well, since it makes the stand restless and blows your rinse water back across the glass in streaks. Finally, keep the zone under the floor free of playing children and of pets, because a falling squeegee or bucket lands hard.