Cleaning a canopy? Choose the right scaffold.

Cleaning a canopy is nearly always a solo job. Only one person fits usefully along a covering like that, and the second would be standing below waiting anyway. That makes the MiTower the model of choice here: slim, light and built for one, with a frame of 75 cm that you put up and roll along by yourself. Up top there is room for a bucket, a brush on a handle and a hose, and nothing else needs to come with you.

The hard part of this work lies in the repeating and not in the carrying, and that is why the 75 cm matters: it is exactly what you need to get between the canopy and a hedge, a fence or a parked car. Where a wide build of 135 cm jams at the corner of a carport, this slim version simply rolls on through. On the deck you stand sideways on to the covering with your hip against the guard rail, and that is the posture in which you last longest.

Hold on to the difference between the model itself and the build you hire from it. The MiTower as a type reaches 6.2 metres of working height and is meant for the lower work around a house; if your canopy hangs higher you end up with the narrow RS51, which as a series carries on much further. Which builds exist and what each height contains you can lay side by side when reserving a MiTower, so you take exactly the height your canopy asks for.

Here you measure not to the underside of the covering but to the deck on top of it, and then you add a little. You do not want to be exactly level with the surface but able to look down onto it, otherwise you never see the heap of leaves at the back. With a canopy hanging at about three metres you want your waist just at deck level, which keeps the whole depth in view, right up to where it meets the wall.

The working height quoted in the hire is your deck height with roughly 2 metres of reach on top, because you are standing up there yourself. For an ordinary covering on a house that lands you in the band of four to six metres, exactly the range the MiTower was made for. If the canopy of a carport or a business unit sits higher, you reserve a build that goes beyond what this model manages and move up to a narrow tower from the larger series.

Choosing too low bites straight away: you end up sweeping under the deck and only push the dirt further back, where you cannot get at it at all. You also rinse upwards with the hose and catch the lot yourself. Which deck height belongs to which reach is set out for you on the six metre working height page, worth a look before you commit to a tower. Hiring one level higher costs you hardly any extra effort, since the difference in the set is a few parts.

The build goes beside the canopy and not in front of it, because you have to be able to shuffle along the side. So look at where that is possible: on the terrace, on the drive, on the path beside a carport or in the border. At a covering above a back door the space is often tight, with a water butt, a bike store or a fence thirty centimetres away, and that is precisely where the narrow footprint of this tower helps. Measure that tight side before you hire.

Water is going to run down underneath you, and far more of it than you expect. So put the build on paving rather than in a flower bed, because wet soil under a wheel sinks slowly while you are scrubbing away. If no other spot is available, lay boards under the wheels and check halfway through the day whether everything still stands level. The stabilisers go out even when the build is only four metres tall.

Clear away everything below that must not get filthy: cushions, a barbecue, planters and the neighbour's bike. What comes off the deck simply drops, and with moss and leaf silt that is a brown sludge. What to put underneath the feet on paving or gravel is covered under stabilising a mobile scaffold, which pays off doubly on wet work. A build that goes out of true halfway through the day costs you more time than the cleaning itself.

A canopy three or four metres wide is cleaned in a morning: leaves off, brush over it, rinse down and empty the channel along the edge. Along a long covering beside a carport or a row of stores you are busy for a day, simply because you gain a metre or two per position and therefore move often. Reckon at the reservation on one rental day for a single covering and on two if there are several.

Cleaning agent that has to soak in usually decides the rest of your planning. Put something on against green growth and it needs a few hours or even a night before you rinse, and the tower stays up for that whole time. The same goes if you want to treat or paint after the cleaning. Build that waiting time into your rental period deliberately instead of hoping to manage it in one afternoon. A tower that is already standing costs you almost nothing extra on such a waiting day.

Keeping it an extra day weighs little in this hire, since only that first 24 hours is charged in full. What you do notice is a collection date that falls too early: then you are standing over a half rinsed covering while a driver waits for your parts. So choose your dates on the generous side, certainly if the weather that week is changeable and you would rather finish the canopy on a dry morning than between two showers.

Every position gives you a deck 245 cm long, so a good two metres of canopy sits within reach. Reaching further serves no purpose: lean over the rail to catch that last corner and you push yourself off the build, besides putting force on a covering never meant to take it. Better to step down, roll the tower on two metres and climb back up; with this model that costs under a minute and it is exactly why you hire this one.

Work from the back forwards and from the top down. Take the coarse leaves off first by hand or with a scoop and only rinse afterwards, otherwise you shove a wet plug of leaves into the channel and give yourself two jobs instead of one. Keep the hose hanging down on the ladder side in a generous loop, so it does not pull tight when you shift along a metre and tug at your arm.

What many people underestimate is the weight of wet dirt and the behaviour of a pressure washer. A lance at full pressure pushes you back, and you only notice that once you are already hanging over the deck with straight arms. So work with the lance close to your body, or simply take a brush on a handle. On a plastic sheet that also saves scratches and dull patches, and it leaves your free hand more grip on the rail.

What arrives is a counted set of loose parts, and the building of it is yours. In this class that is a manageable pile: a few frames, two decks, braces and the stabilisers. Point out in advance where those things may be put, preferably close to where the build has to end up, because everything you have to carry further costs time you would rather spend on the covering. On a drive or a terrace the parts stay dry and clean until you need them.

Reserve on a working day before 15:00 and the parts can be with you the working day after. On cleaning work you watch the forecast above all: you want neither a soaking day on which the dirt only spreads nor a night of frost. Because you fill in the delivery date and the collection date yourself, you can have the set arrive on the first of two dry days you see coming. That saves you a rental day on which nothing would happen anyway.

Building is yours to do, and with a one person model that really does work alone; allow half an hour to three quarters. Once the covering is clean you dismantle the build and stack the parts at the agreed spot, after which we collect the set on the day you chose. Do not leave the parts lying in wet grass but stand them against the wall or lay them on paving; they are counted through at collection and that goes quicker when everything is together.

The floor of the tower is made to carry 200 kg per square metre, the requirement of load class 3 within EN 1004. The top of your canopy is not, and on this job that difference is the whole story. So do not step onto it briefly to reach that one corner and do not lean a knee on it either. Plastic sheets can look sound for years and still give way in one go, certainly once seasons of sun have made them brittle.

Set the brakes before you touch the ladder and leave them on the whole time you are working up there. You only move the build while standing on the ground yourself and with nothing left on the deck; a full bucket of suds tipping over as you roll is exactly how a quiet job still goes wrong. In strong wind you put the cleaning off, because the spray then blows everywhere but where you want it and a light build passes on every gust.

Wet work makes everything slippery. Your soles go soapy, the deck turns into a mirror and so do the rungs of the ladder, so wipe with a cloth now and then and climb calmly. Keep an eye on who walks below you as well: at a covering above a back door somebody is soon standing in the leaves and the dirty water. Warn the household before you start rinsing, and set a cone or a bucket by that door while you work.