Painting window frames? Choose the right scaffold.

The RS51 is the model for this job: a narrow Altrex tower with a 75 cm platform that one person rolls along on their own. You do not pick that width out of necessity but because it makes the work faster. You have to get between the hedge and the brickwork, round a bay to the side elevation and, at many houses, through a gate to the back. On an elevation with eight frames you shift that tower dozens of times. The whole range is listed on the page about hiring a mobile scaffold.

Up on the platform width barely matters any more. A window frame is a narrow upright face that you stand square in front of with a brush, a small roller, a paint kettle and a sanding block, and you carry little else. What does count is the 245 cm length, because that covers a frame plus the brickwork beside it without repositioning halfway. Lay your materials along the guardrail on the wall side and the whole walking line across the platform stays clear.

Only when two decorators work the same elevation, or when timber and tools land on the platform beside the paint, does the 135 cm wide RS52 come into view. For brush work on your own you pay that roomier deck back at every passage: a garden gate, a side entry or the narrow strip past an extension turns awkward straight away. As a model the RS51 carries on to 14.2 metres, but for window frames you almost always order one of the lowest builds.

The highest point of this job is the head of the topmost window, and on an ordinary terraced house that sits somewhere between 4 and 5 metres above street level. So here you order the build that stays between 4.2 and 6.2 metres of working height. Do the sum yourself: to the platform height you add roughly 2 metres of reach, the stretch that your arms and shoulders cover. Your deck therefore lands at something between 2.2 and 4.2 metres.

That is lower than the build you would take for work on the elevation itself, and that is the whole point here. At a gutter or a fascia you have to get your head above the work, while at a window frame you want the head rail at chest height and the sill somewhere near your knees. From that position you draw the stiles out downwards in one continuous stroke and you can see under the rebate, where paint collects. Which build suits shows at a build up to six metres.

You put the tape on the ground where the castors end up, not on your front doorstep. If the back garden sits a step below the patio, your whole build shifts down with it. Choose too tight and you stand under your work and lay the head rail off with your arms stretched above you, which shows up as runs and streaks along the glass. For windows on the first floor the second build is therefore nearly always the safe pick.

Under a window frame you rarely find an empty strip. A border runs along the wall, a water butt stands under the downpipe, or a bike rack is in the way. Stabilisers splay outwards from the tower and therefore ask for more room on four sides than the deck itself is wide, while you want the base tight against the wall to reach the rebate. Walk that strip before you book, and you know in advance at which window it gets tight.

Then you look at what lies under the castors. Paving and a drive give no trouble; loose garden soil that sinks after a shower does, and a path falling away towards the fence asks for sole boards. Put a sheet or a piece of card under the window you are working on, because brush work at height means spatter on the slabs and on the car parked behind you. For an uneven spot the piece on ground that is not level helps.

The real choice on this job is how the tower sits relative to the opening casement. Do not put it square in front of the opening part but half a metre to one side, so the window can swing out without touching an upright. You need that for as long as the paint in the rebate is still soft, and in practice that lasts until late afternoon. Stand the scaffold wrong and you move it in the evening purely to shut your house.

A full round of window frames takes more time than most people budget, simply because you visit every window three or four times. Sanding and filling come first, then the primer, then a light sanding between coats and finally two covering coats. Each round you walk the elevation again and shift the tower at every window. On a front with six to eight frames you land on three to four hire days, and if the back goes in the same week, on about five.

Inside that period sit hours in which you can only wait. A fresh coat has to dry through before the next one goes on, and how long that takes you read off the tin of your own paint. The weather lays another layer over that: in full midday sun the paint skins too fast and your brush mark stays put, and on a damp morning with dew on the sills you start only once the glass has dried. Plan for the day you are certainly finished.

Luckily the way the rate is built works in your favour. Only the first 24 hours carry the full amount, and every day you add behind it is discounted by 95 per cent. An extra day for a rain shower or a coat that still feels soft therefore costs next to nothing, while booking too tight means the van pulls up while half your elevation is still in primer. The amounts per model stand including VAT at our rental prices.

A deck 245 cm long gives you a whole window frame plus some brickwork around it per pitch. Finish that frame completely before you move on: start with the opening casement while the window stands open, go to the head rail, then the stiles, and end at the sill where the paint sinks to. Push on to the next window halfway through and you will be back on the same spot later, having made a whole extra round with the scaffold.

Go up lightly loaded. A window frame barely asks half a litre of paint, so decant a small tin and leave the big one on the ground. Beyond that only a brush, a narrow roller, a sanding block, masking tape and a rag travel with you. Every item you forget means climbing down and up again, and with eight windows per coat that mounts up. Set your tin in the corner by an upright rather than in the middle of the deck, because turning on 75 cm goes wrong otherwise.

What most people misjudge is how often the tower has to move sideways. Eight frames in the front elevation give eight pitches per coat, and with a primer plus two covering coats you line up again more than twenty times along the same elevation. So lock the castors before you climb and clear the deck completely before you roll. If you later take on the upkeep of your window frames, more pitches get added on top.

What gets dropped off is a complete, counted set of loose parts that you build into a tower yourself. Decide in advance where that stack may go, because the strip under the windows stays clear for sheeting and nothing at all fits in the border. A drive or the grass beside the path suits it better than the pavement the neighbours walk along. Book on a working day and get your order in before 15:00, and everything is delivered the next working day.

The delivery day and the collection day you fill in yourself, and with decorating you want the delivery a day before your first sanding session. That way you build at your leisure, hold the height against the top window while you still can, and start straight away the next morning. Erecting it falls to you: the manual and the instruction video walk through the order, and half a day is enough when there are two of you. Count that half day in, because no paint gets touched then.

Once you are done we return for the parts, after you have dismantled the tower and stacked everything in one place. Wait with that until the last coat is hard enough, otherwise you are swinging tubes past fresh sills and damaging your own work. Count the parts as you set them down, and the set is guaranteed complete when the driver pulls up. What the transport costs there and back depends on the province you live in, and those amounts sit at the cost of delivery.

Load class 3 under EN 1004 puts 200 kg per square metre on each platform. On frame work you normally stay well under that, because you carry little more than a tin of paint and some hand tools. If two of you climb up to lay off a large window together, and there is a bucket of water and a box of abrasives as well, that figure comes closer than expected. Spread the weight along the length in that case.

The basic rules hold, even on this relatively quiet job. Put the castors on the brake before you start up the ladder, never roll with a manned deck or with kit on board, and stop work as soon as a stiff wind gets up. That wind limit counts double here: an open window catches wind like a sail and slams against the guardrail or against your arm. So fix every opening casement on its stay and check the stabilisers after each move.

The danger that belongs specifically to this job is the mix of paint, glass and an open window. Spilt paint makes the deck lethally slippery, so wipe a splash away at once instead of stepping round it all afternoon. Keep the zone under the platform clear of children and delivery drivers as well, because a brush or tin that slides off the guardrail lands right on the path to the front door. What else applies is written out at the safety rules for work at height.