Repairing leadwork? Choose the right scaffold.

For a repair to the leadwork you stand high and you take more up with you than a hammer. A roll of lead, a dresser, a block of hardwood to press with, sealant and a bucket for the old material. This is where the RS52 belongs, the wide type in the Altrex range whose base measures 135 cm. On that deck you lay your kit down beside you instead of pushing it into a pocket every time, and on this sort of work that saves more time than you would guess.

The narrow RS51 at 75 cm exists too, and it still passes a gateway where the wide one sticks fast. For repairing leadwork at eight to twelve metres you pick it only when the way through to the elevation truly allows nothing else. The higher you build, the more pleasant a wide base becomes: you can turn round up there while pressing a flashing into the joint, and the whole build feels far steadier underfoot when you are working with force.

Which height each model reaches per build is worth reading before you go and hire a mobile scaffold. Watch the difference between what the series can manage at most and what you need for this repair: the RS52 runs on to 14.2 metres, but you order the build that suits your own roof edge. So you pay for and put up the height the lead asks for, not the outer limit the model reaches on paper. That saves parts to carry and time on the build.

The highest point on this job is rarely the roof edge itself. The lead sits where a chimney meets the tiles, along the side of a dormer or in a valley gutter, and that is usually a good way above the gutter. So measure not to the gutter but to the damage you mean to put right. Set the zero of your measurement on the paving or the grass where the wheels will rest as well: if the back garden lies lower than the pavement, that difference simply counts.

The working height you hire is the height of the deck plus roughly 2 metres of reach, because you are standing on it yourself. With the broken lead at ten metres you come out at a deck of about eight metres and reserve a build from the band of eight to twelve metres. Anyone who skips that sum and orders by eye ends up slightly too low and leans over the top rail while dressing, which is exactly what you want to avoid on this work.

Hiring too short costs you quality straight away on lead. You will not get a flashing pressed flat if you are working at it from below, and it lifts again in the first storm. If you fall between two builds, reserve the upper of the two: a deck can always be hung a level lower, but you cannot conjure up an extra frame. How many frames such a build takes, and how much ground it swallows at the foot, is worked through on the page for a working height of ten metres.

Lead tends to sit at the most awkward place on the house: against the chimney at the ridge, in the corner where an extension meets the elevation, or behind a dormer. The tower has to stand square underneath it, and that is usually where the border, the shed or the terrace is. Walk that spot before you reserve anything and see whether you can free an area of roughly two by three metres, the room the extended stabilisers claim included.

The ground has to carry and it has to be levelled. On grass or loose paving you put a solid board under each wheel so the tower cannot sink while you are up there tapping a flashing home with force. A difference in level you take up with the adjustable spindles and not with a stack of paving slabs. At this working height the stabilisers stand well out, so count on far more floor than the base measurement suggests at first sight.

If the build stands on the street side or on a drive, look at whether people can still get past and whether the bin can still come out. On a job of a day or two you do not want to block the neighbours needlessly, and you want to walk past the feet yourself with a roll of lead under your arm. How to set a tall build down firmly, and what to watch with loose paving, is described in the article on stabilising and anchoring a mobile scaffold.

The repair itself is short work once you can reach it. Taking the old piece of lead out, cleaning the joint, cutting a new strip to size, dressing it home and sealing it costs you half a day at a single spot. The rest of your time goes on building, perhaps moving once and striking again. Count on two rental days: on the first you set the tower up and work through, the second you keep in hand for the finishing.

If you are replacing the complete run of flashings along a whole abutment, that is a different job and you hire for longer. There you shift the build several times and work through metre by metre, while a repair stays spot work in one place and you often keep standing where you are. What to plan for that larger job is on the page about replacing lead flashings. That distinction settles both your rental period and whether you have to be able to move in between.

Sealant and filler need time before they can take rain. So do not put your collection date on the evening of your working day but a day later, then you can climb up the next morning to see whether everything is sitting right and nothing has shifted. A spare day in your reservation barely weighs on the hire, while a tower that goes too early forces you to round the whole thing off in one afternoon.

From one position you cover a strip of 245 cm, the length of the deck. For a loose flashing beside a dormer or a collar around a chimney that is plenty. If the leak sits just outside that reach, do not stretch for it but move the tower once. Hanging out sideways costs you more time in the end than striking and repositioning, and you will not get the lead tight against the surface in that posture in any case.

Take up in one climb what you need up there. Lead weighs a fair amount per running metre, so cut your pieces to size below and haul them up in a bucket or a bag instead of carrying them up the ladder under your arm. On the deck you lay the lead flat against the guard rail, so nothing can slide over the edge the moment a stiff gust runs along the elevation or you bend down for a second.

What people misjudge is the stance of their own body. Lead is dressed with force from above downwards, and that only comes off if the deck hangs just below the work instead of beside it. So hang it first at the height you think you will be working at, climb up and check with a straight arm whether you reach the top of the damage. Re-hanging a deck costs five minutes; standing wrong costs you the whole afternoon.

The scaffold arrives at your door as a complete, counted set of parts. Order before 15:00 on a working day and it all stands there the next working day. For a build towards ten metres that is a fair number of frames, decks and braces, so point out beforehand where they may lie: along the elevation, on the drive or in the front garden, and certainly not across the path you will be walking with a roll of lead under your arm.

You choose the delivery date and the collection date yourself when you book. On leadwork you look mainly at the wind for that, because a repair at this height is not one for a day when it blows hard. If you see two quiet days coming, have the set brought the day before. You then have an evening or an early morning to build in peace and start on your first flashing with dry material, instead of having to choose between building and working.

Building is your part of the arrangement: we drive the parts in and come back for them afterwards. Allow about two hours at this height and do it with two people, because someone below who passes material up works faster than dragging it all up on your own. Once the lead is finished the whole thing comes down in reverse order and you stack the loose parts neatly where they were dropped off, so nothing is left in a border or behind the shed.

EN 1004 puts these towers in load class 3: 200 kg on every square metre of deck, you and your material together. On leadwork you will not get near that, but do count what goes up with you: a roll of lead, tools, a bucket of old material and sometimes a helper. Do not lay the heavy things all beside the hatch but spread them over both ends of the floor, and bring stripped material down at the end of the day rather than leaving it up there.

The moment you are standing on it, the wheels are braked and the stabilisers are out. You never move it with a person or with material on board, not even that one metre to the left. If it blows hard, you simply stop: at this height you feel every gust, and a loose strip of lead is exactly the sort of thing that gets torn out of your hands. Waiting for a calm day is not lost time on leadwork but plainly the sensible choice.

Watch what goes on below you as well. A hammer, a dresser and a piece of lead land hard, and on this job the tower often stands right beside a door or a garden path. Close that side off with tape or a cone, certainly if there are children playing outside. If you are working just after a shower, wipe the deck dry: wet aluminium with lead residue on your soles is a good deal more slippery than it looks.