Replacing a rainwater drain? Choose the right scaffold.

For this job you hire the RS51, the narrow Altrex tower 75 cm wide with a range running from 4.2 metres up to 14.2 metres of working height. That narrow dimension is no side issue here, because a rainwater drain rarely sits in the middle of a flat front wall. Usually it runs away in a corner, past an extension or through the alley between two houses, and then every centimetre of width counts. The other models stand together in the range of mobile scaffolds for facade work.

The wide 135 cm version gives you more floor, but you will not get it through the same passages and you do not need that room at a pipe. After all, you keep working in the same place instead of sliding along a whole elevation. A room scaffold drops out: it is meant for indoor work and comes nowhere near the height at which the gutter connection of a rainwater drain sits. That leaves the narrow version, which you also carry to the back with fewer parts.

The 245 cm platform length you use differently here than on paintwork. You do not need it to reach far sideways, but you do need it as a shelf: a pipe section, the brackets, the drill and a bucket of rubble fit alongside one another without anything balancing on the edge. On a day full of loose components that saves you a good many trips up and down, and you notice it most towards the end of the afternoon.

The highest point on this job is where the pipe enters the gutter: the outlet, the bend and the top bracket. On a house of two storeys that point lies at four to six metres, and the build that suits it gives 6 to 8 metres of working height. That figure holds not only your platform but also the good 2 metres a grown adult still reaches standing up. More about that build is on the page with a working height of 8 metres.

Measure from the paving or the ground where the castors come, and watch the fall while you do. Paving round a house nearly always slopes slightly towards the gully, and that is exactly where a rainwater drain ends. If that leaves you standing half a step lower than the doorstep, you really do need that extra half metre to work comfortably at the gutter. So take your measurement at the spot the castors will occupy, and not up at the front door where the ground sits higher.

Choosing too tight bites harder here than on other facade work, because the awkward part sits at the top. The bend in the gutter and the first bracket ask for precision, and you will not get that standing with your arms stretched above your head. The bottom metres of pipe you can manage from the ground at a pinch, but the connection into the gutter is no place to improvise with a short build. In doubt take the higher setting, which costs you barely more when you hire.

The base of your set-up and the end of the pipe fight over the same square metre. At the bottom the drain comes out over a gully, a ground pipe or a cast iron pot in the paving, and you want neither a castor nor a stabiliser on top of that. So stand the scaffold just to one side of the line of the pipe rather than square in front of it, so that you reach the outlet freely below and still face the gutter spout above.

Then look at the corner the drain disappears into. With a bay, an extension or a recessed porch you can often approach from one side only, and that one side decides how far the stabilisers can open. Measure that before you hire, because a scaffold that stands but cannot be braced is useless. Sometimes shifting the whole thing half a metre is already enough to get all four legs out without losing sight of the gutter spout above you.

The obstacles on this work sit almost always in the same places: the outside tap, a water butt plumbed into the drain, a bike rack against the wall and the border running right up to the brickwork. Clear that before the van pulls up. Look at the ground as well, because on loose decorative paving a stabiliser sinks askew and your set-up no longer stands square to the facade. A board under the foot usually solves it.

A single rainwater drain is generously served by one day. The old pipe comes off, the old brackets come loose, the holes in the pointing are made good, and after that you drill the new brackets and slide the sections together from the top down. Anyone who has done it before is finished in half a day. Even so you usually book two days, because building at the start and dismantling at the end belong to the job as well.

What stretches it is the facade itself. Soft pointing, weathered brick or a section that was repaired years earlier forces you to move brackets and fill holes. If a second pipe runs at the back, or the gutter outlet has to be renewed at the same time, another half day joins on. And the wall stands open during those hours: a shower in the middle of the work means water against the brickwork instead of into the gully.

Booking generously therefore costs little and gains much. The full rate is payable over the first 24 hours only, and everything after it comes with 95 per cent off, which leaves an extra day barely visible in your rental price. Put your collection date one day behind your last planned working day rather than exactly on it. That way you need not finish a joint that still leaks in the dark or during a shower, and you keep time to sweep the paving.

Start at the top and work downwards. Fix the bend and the topmost bracket at the gutter first, because that point sets the whole line that follows below it. From there hang a plumb bob or stretch a thin cord along the facade, and you drill every next bracket exactly under the previous one. If that line runs out of true you see it at once over six metres, and then you are filling holes in brickwork that had just been tidied.

Moving on this job goes downwards instead of sideways. You finish the upper stretch from the highest setting, and for the last few metres you step down a platform or simply onto the ground. Clear the platform before you change anything: loose brackets, screws and a length of pipe do not belong on a scaffold you are about to alter. Take one pipe section up at a time rather than the whole stack, because a loose pipe rolls off a deck faster than you expect.

Drilling at height takes more force than you are used to on the ground, certainly in hard brick. Take a spare battery up, and a box of plugs in two sizes in case a hole opens out. Reckon too with the dust each hole produces: it falls down the facade and lands precisely on the paving you will shortly be walking over with a pipe section. Sweep it up in between and you will not slide later.

We bring the mobile scaffold as loose, pre-counted parts: uprights, platforms, braces, guard rails and castors. Point out a place where that stack may lie and keep the strip under the drain free while you do, because that is where you will be hauling pipe sections about. A drive or a piece of front garden works better than the path along the wall. Put the booking through on a working day, with 15:00 as the latest time, and the parts stand ready the next working day.

You set the arrival day and the day everything leaves again. It is handy to have the scaffold come on the morning your new pipe, brackets and bends are also in, so you can lay it all out at once. Building you do yourself, with the manual and the film to hand; with two of you it takes under an hour to be up at height. Pick a dry day by preference, because a facade without a drain is not something to leave standing in the rain.

Once the new rainwater drain is up we come to take the parts away. You dismantle, count everything through as you take it apart and set the complete set down on the spot you chose. Before then, check that the new pipe really is watertight, because you would rather look at that from the platform of the hired scaffold than later off a ladder. The cost of bringing and collecting per province is at the delivery rates including VAT.

The platform under your feet falls into load class 3 within EN 1004 and may therefore carry 200 kg per square metre. On this work you fill that faster than with paint: you, a drill, a box of brackets, a bucket of old material and a length of pipe all add up. So keep the heavy items towards the centre of the deck instead of stacking them against one guard rail, certainly if you are standing on that side drilling with your weight forward.

The standard rules hold here in full. Brake the castors as you step on, never move the mobile scaffold while somebody is up there or material is lying on the deck, and stop in strong wind. That last point matters extra on this job, because a three metre pipe section held up at arm's length behaves like a sail and takes your balance with it. Everything further on that score is collected in the rules that govern work at height.

The risks peculiar to this work lie in sharp edges and in falling parts. Old zinc pipe cuts, so wear gloves and do not let the removed lengths drop but pass them down or lower them on a line. Keep the zone beneath you clear, certainly while the gully is open. Drilling dust also makes the platform slippery rather than grippy, so brush it away before you turn round with a three metre length in your hands.