Painting a low wall? Choose the right scaffold.

Start with a tape measure before you commit to anything. If the top of your boundary sits at a metre and a half with a level terrace in front of it, you paint the lot standing and a step stool covers the coping. Hiring a tower in that situation is money thrown away, and we would rather say so than have a build stand idle in your garden. It turns the moment the brickwork reaches two metres or more, as on a boundary wall between two plots.

If that is your case, hire the Altrex MiTower. This is a model for one person, 75 centimetres across, that you assemble alone and roll alone, and that counts for a great deal here: alongside a wall you shift a stretch every few minutes. The base also passes through a garden gate and along a path between borders. For painting a low wall along a boundary that is the difference between a smooth day and a slow one. Which build heights exist is set out under hiring a MiTower.

There is a second reason to look at the rental fleet, even for a low wall: ground that falls away under you. A boundary along a ditch, up on a bank, or at the edge of a sunken drive forces you into a posture where a brush controls nothing. A tower turns that into a flat working floor, and that, rather than the height of the brickwork, is the reason to hire a mobile scaffold when painting a low wall.

The highest point is not the wall itself but the place where your paint stops. If the boundary runs dead into the side elevation of a shed or an extension, you usually take the adjoining stretch of render up as far as the eaves. That puts you at four to five metres soon enough. Measure from the ground you will actually be standing on, not from the terrace that happens to sit half a metre higher, or you will buy a build that falls just short.

That measured figure then gets translated into a build. Whatever height your platform is pinned at, add about 2 metres for your arms and the roller, and that sum is your working height. A wall that finishes at four metres therefore does not need a deck at four metres, which saves on the rental price and on the carrying. A range of 4 to 6 metres covers almost every wall that meets a building; the page on a tower reaching six metres shows how that works out.

Hire a build that falls short and something unpleasant happens to the quality of your work. The top band gets rolled at full stretch, the roller runs dry, and a line is left that you will always see from the garden. With masonry paint on brickwork that is awkward to put right, because a second coat over a half dried first coat will patch. Measuring first and choosing the build afterwards saves that correction entirely. It also stops you hiring more working height than the wall ever asked for.

Ground in a garden is rarely as flat as it looks. Grass sinks under castors, paving slabs sit loose in sand, and along a border the soil falls away towards the planting. So put a slab or a thick sheet of ply under every castor, spreading the load so the build is not out of true within the hour. Check it is level again after you have repositioned once, because on soft ground more moves than you expect.

Beside water the requirements on the spot are stricter. With brickwork on a ditch bank, keep at least half a metre between the foot of the tower and the edge, because that ground is often undercut and can crumble under load. If that distance is impossible, lay boards or trench sheets and carry the weight back onto firm soil behind. On top of a bank the same principle applies: you stand on the level part and work sideways towards the slope rather than on it.

Right round the base you must leave room for the stabilisers, and that is exactly what a heavily planted garden does not offer. A border full of perennials, a fence a metre away or a dense hedge will foul the legs. Prune something back or move pots aside before you begin, because halfway through assembly you do not want to be shunting half a tower. Ground that will not sit flat is dealt with in the article on standing a tower where the surface is uneven.

Painting a low wall is more waiting than working. First you brush the moss and the loose sand off and rinse down, and that has to dry for a day before paint may go on. Then a primer follows and one or two finishing coats, with drying time again between each. The rolling and cutting in themselves take only a few hours per coat, so the calendar decides how many hire days you need here, not the pace you keep up.

Most people do not need the build for that whole period. The low part of the boundary you do from the ground anyway, and the tower only comes into play on the tall stretch or at the junction with the building. So reserve it for the days those bands are due, which is often two and sometimes three. Painting a low wall rarely fills a whole hire week. What each model costs per period is gathered on the tariff page of the rental service.

Running on is cheaply arranged for outdoor work. Only the opening twenty four hours goes on at the whole tariff, and from the second day a ninety five per cent reduction runs on every further day the tower stays in your garden. For painting in spring or autumn that helps a lot, because one wet morning shunts half a day and you need that slack. Set the collection date wide and simply tell us if the last coat goes on sooner.

With a platform of 245 cm you finish a good two metres of wall per position, so on a ten metre boundary you reposition four or five times. That shifting is no obstacle on this job, because masonry paint on brickwork has no wet edge to keep up with the way render does. You can climb down in your own time, move a stretch along, lock the castors again and carry on without seeing that break later in the finish.

Take up per position what you will use in those two metres: a kettle with a roller, a brush for the joints and the coping, and a cloth. Stand the tin below by the climbing frame rather than on the deck, because every kilo you carry up adds to your own weight on a build rated for one person. If the wall has to be painted on both sides, do the full length of one face first and only then turn to the other.

What catches people out is the bottom. From the tower you see the top edge and the coping perfectly well, but the last thirty centimetres above ground level never come within reach, and that is where most of the green growth sits. Plan that strip as a separate round from the ground, on a kneeler, either before the tower arrives or after it has gone. Otherwise a grey band stays there and gives the rest away. Painting a low wall is judged from the garden path, and that band is the first thing anyone sees.

The material reaches you as a complete set of numbered parts. Booking on a working day means a 15:00 deadline, and beating it puts the bundled parts beside your gate on the working day after that. During that booking you fill in the arrival date and the return date yourself. One thing matters for garden work: the driver sets the parts down at the drive or on the pavement and does not come into your back garden. So sort out beforehand how they get through the gate.

Assembly belongs to the job you are doing, because we erect nothing and no assembled tower ever rolls out of the van. A manual comes with the package and there is an instruction video online running through the order. Since this is a model for one user, you manage without help. Do it on the flat part of the garden and only then roll the build across to the wall; that works better than building between borders with a fence at your back.

Once the last coat is dry you take the parts apart again and stack them where the van left them. On the return date you chose, the van comes back for everything, so no driving and no trailer on your side. If the painting is put off by a wet week, pass that on through the contact page for your booking so the collection day moves with you and you are not left with half a job. Painting a low wall outdoors depends on the sky, and the hire runs with it.

This is a build for one person and that limit is not decoration. A class 3 deck under EN 1004 is rated at 200 kilos for each square metre, which one painter and a paint kettle never come close to. On this model the binding factor is stability instead: it is meant to carry a decorator with his paint, not two people holding a long batten between them. If you want to paint in pairs, let the other do the low part from the ground and swap over.

In an open back garden wind is the most underrated risk. A gust drawing between the fence and the shed pushes harder than you expect at the moment you are rolling with an arm out. Stop when it blows hard and leave no sheeting or dust cover hanging on the tubes, because that catches the wind like a sail. Lock the brakes on all castors before you climb, and never move the tower with somebody on it or a kettle balanced up top.

Working above water or along a steep bank, think mainly about the landing. Miss your step there and a fall into the nettles or the ditch is a different matter from one onto a terrace. Keep your phone in your pocket, do not work alone when it genuinely is over water, and keep the extension lead or the hose off your walking line. Tell someone indoors that you are out by the water. A hired tower does not make a ditch bank safe on its own. The ground rules sit under safe work at height.