Window frame maintenance? Choose the right scaffold.

The model you want here is the Altrex RS51, 75 cm wide. On this job what counts most is how often you set it down again, and on an average house that is more than ten times. A slim build you push over the garden path on your own, tilt past a shed and take through the gate to the back without dismantling anything. Base sizes and part counts per model are listed with the mobile scaffolds we hire out.

What goes up with you in maintenance is light but numerous: a sealant gun with cartridges, a sealant knife, degreaser and cloths, a can of lubricant, a screwdriver set for the locks, abrasive paper and a tin of paint with a brush. All of that fits in a bucket or a tool bag, and that is exactly why you need no wide deck. You do want to stand everything upright, because a toppled sealant gun on an aluminium platform is a tiresome clean up you meet again at handing back.

A wide model of 135 cm adds little here and even works against you. Every move needs more clearance, and along a garden path sixty centimetres across you simply will not get by. Only if two of you work the same window frame at once, or you start sanding and painting larger areas, does that extra deck become interesting. The sizes of both versions sit side by side in the overview of dimensions per mobile scaffold.

Base your build on the highest window in the round, not on the average one. If there is a loft light or a fanlight above the front door, that decides your choice, even though it is only one of fourteen. With two storeys and a roof above them you almost always end up between 6 and 8 metres. On top of your platform height comes a reach of roughly 2 metres, so the deck sits lower than the window frame itself.

Measure each elevation separately, because the ground under the castors differs all round the house. At the street side you stand on flat paving, at the back perhaps on a terrace a step lower, and at the side on a path that falls away. The same window therefore asks a slightly different build per standing place. Reserve on the least favourable of those readings, since a build falling just short at the back cannot be helped by any trick. What that choice yields is set out under working at eight metres.

Pitching too low takes its revenge in maintenance especially. Sealant work asks that you see the joint square on, or you will draw a bead that looks crooked from below. Adjusting a lock is done with a screwdriver at eye level, not with your arms above your head. And the head of the frame is precisely where water stands, so that is the part you certainly want to reach. Fall just short there and in practice you skip the most important piece.

On this job you have not one standing place but a series. Walk right round the house before the material comes and settle per window where the build will go. Number the windows with a piece of chalk or on a note and work them in that order, so you never have to go the same way twice. On an average house that easily saves you an hour of pushing to and fro along the garden path, and that hour is otherwise simply hidden in your hire days.

The ground changes from place to place, and that is the real work here. On paving you roll straight on, on grass a castor sinks in as soon as it has rained, and on a gravel path you cannot get the stabilisers level. Lay a few paving slabs or thick boards ready for the soft spots and carry them round with you. Look as well at what stands against the wall: a water butt, an outside tap, a low hedge or a shed roof that comes out just under the window.

At every new standing place fold the four stabilisers out again and set them tight, even if you are only twenty minutes at that window. It is exactly the temptation to skip that on short stops which makes this job risky. Levelling a build on a sloping or uneven path is described step by step in the explanation about uneven surfaces, and on a round of the whole house you meet that at nearly every window you stop at.

Count your hire days on the number of windows upstairs, not on the size of your house. Per window frame you are half an hour to three quarters busy with sealant, locks and a touched in patch, and to that comes ten minutes of moving every time. Eight windows on the upper floor thereby fill a whole day, and with the eaves line and a second coat of paint added you arrive at two to three days with the mobile scaffold standing at your place.

There is waiting time in it as well, though less than with repair work. Fresh sealant has to skin over before you take a brush past it, and touched in patches want to be dry before the second coat. That means coming back at the end of the day to the windows you began at that morning. Plan that second round inside your hire period and not on the day the material is being collected, or you end up choosing between rushing and skipping.

Reserving an extra day costs little with this hire. Only the first twenty four hours count for the full rate; from the second day onwards a discount of 95 per cent runs on everything you add. With a maintenance round that hangs on the weather that is pleasant, because you need not gamble on four dry days in a row and can let a wet afternoon go by. What others allow for a job like this is set out in the article about how long people keep a build.

Work a fixed order per window frame and you forget nothing and need not come back. Start with cleaning and degreasing, then go round the sealant joint against the glass and the brickwork, cut loose sections away and gun in fresh. Move on to the ironmongery next: grease the hinges, adjust the keeps, tighten the screws. Finish with sanding and touching in the places where the paint has sprung open. Every standing place then lasts about as long and you know by midday how many windows you will still reach.

A deck 245 cm long puts a whole ordinary window before you and brings both top corners within reach without stretching. At a wide frame, or a pair of windows next to each other, you sometimes take two in one position, and that saves a move straight away. Look at that when you lay out your round: two narrow bedroom windows close together form one standing place and not two. Over fourteen windows that quickly saves three moves.

Take everything up in one go and hang the sealant gun on the guard rail instead of laying it down. What people misjudge is the number of small things they forget on the way: a spare cartridge, a clean cloth, the right screw for a keep. Climbing down each time costs a few minutes and over fourteen windows that mounts to half a day. If you are going to paint the window frames as well, that becomes a planning of its own.

You receive the material as a complete, counted set of loose parts which you put together yourself. We come to build nothing and never deliver an erected frame; instructions come with the set and a video online follows the same order. Allow about an hour for it with two of you. Do that at the start of your first maintenance day, or better still the evening before, so the morning goes on actually starting at the window frames.

Fix your reservation on a working day with 15:00 still ahead of you, and the following working day becomes the delivery day. Which dates those are you decide, for the bringing as well as the fetching, and with maintenance you pick them on the forecast: sealant and paint want dry weather and a temperature that is not too low, so a round in late spring or late summer beats an attempt in November. Living nearby, you collect the set free of charge by appointment on the Zeeburgerpad in Amsterdam.

Work out beforehand where the bundles may lie at the delivery. On this job you walk right round the house, so do not put them hard against the elevation where you begin but on the drive or in the front garden, out of your own walking route. Afterwards you strike the mobile scaffold and we load the material again. Reckon the transport into your budget: every province has its own fixed amount for bringing plus fetching, which you find on the page with rates for delivery and collection.

Every square metre of the platform is rated for 200 kg, precisely what load class 3 within EN 1004 prescribes. Maintaining window frames keeps you well under it, since you carry only small tools and a few cartridges. The risk here lies elsewhere: at twelve moves in a day the checking becomes a routine you start skipping at some point. So run through the same list at every new standing place before you climb on, however short the work at that one window.

Lock the castors as soon as your foot is on the first rung and keep them locked until you are back on the ground. Never travel with tools or with somebody on the platform, not even to that one window further along, because it is precisely on short moves that this goes wrong. If it blows hard, put the painting off: the brush is taken out of your hand and dust sticks in the wet layer. The remaining rules are gathered in the article on safe work at height.

Sealant and paint make your platform slippery, and on this job that is the danger people underrate. A drop of silicone under your sole feels like ice on aluminium. Wipe spilled sealant away at once, lay a cloth under your tin of paint and stand the tin in a bucket so it cannot go over. Think of who walks below as well: at windows above a terrace or a path you fence that strip off for as long as you are working overhead.