Staining a pergola? Choose the right scaffold.

A pergola seldom stands free in the middle of a lawn. There is a table beneath it, a border down one side and the house wall on the other. For this you want the Altrex Mi Tower, 75 centimetres across and designed around a single user. It is light enough to push between the uprights on your own, and you do that all day, because every bay of beams puts you somewhere new. As a model it builds to working heights of 4.2 to 6.2 metres, and you use the lower part.

Very little travels up with you on stain work: a tin, two brushes, a rag and an abrasive sponge for the rough patches. Much more would not fit anyway, since a tower meant for one person is not built to be crowded. On a pergola that suits the rhythm, because you move so often that every extra container sends you down the ladder once more. Hook your tin under the guardrail or wedge it against an upright, never loose on the edge of the deck.

Where the frame hangs off a rear extension or carries on under a balcony, this reach runs out, and what you want then is an RS51 mobile scaffold on hire instead, since that model carries on well past ten metres. With two of you at a long pergola a wider deck works more comfortably, paid for in extra carrying across the terrace. Which parts sit in the set is listed on the page where you can hire a Mi Tower.

What you have to reach on a pergola is not the rafters themselves but the air just above them. A pergola is only properly stained once you can look down onto the top of every beam, since that is the face collecting rain and the first to turn grey. So measure from the slabs to half a metre above the topmost timber, and an ordinary terrace pergola lands you at 4 to 6 metres. Your deck hangs between two and four, because roughly two metres of reach is counted above the platform.

Take that measurement on the terrace itself rather than the lawn alongside, since a terrace commonly sits a step higher than the rest of the garden. Where the frame stands half on paving and half in a border, the lowest adjustable foot decides which build you fix. Look as well at the clearance beneath the rafters: on a good many pergolas there is barely more than two metres between deck and timber, and one setting too tall puts your shoulders straight into the beams.

Go too low and you stain the upper faces by feel alone. That returns half a year later, when precisely those surfaces stand grey while the sides still look sound, and you get to hire a scaffold a second time in a taller build for the very same timber. Go too high and your head meets the rafters, so you work bent over and feel it in your back within the hour. Which setting matches a reach of six metres is shown per model.

The surface this tower has to stand on is usually a terrace, and a terrace is rarely as level as it appears. Slabs are laid with a fall away from the house, the odd paver has sunk and a band of gravel often runs along the edge. Set all four stabilisers on solid paving rather than on that gravel, and adjust the legs until nothing rocks as you step aboard. Check a timber deck for soft boards first, because they give way under a point load.

Then empty the terrace. Chairs, the table, a barbecue, planters and the cable feeding your outdoor lights all sit exactly where the wheels need to travel. Count on the stabilisers not quite fitting between two uprights; in that case you place the tower slightly outside the bay and work up at an angle instead. That costs you a few centimetres of reach, so allow for it when choosing your build and measure the clear gap between the posts before booking.

All round the base you want a free strip, including on the border side. With a pergola built against the house that generally means the entire first row of slabs along the wall has to clear, planters and hosepipe included. If your terrace falls away steeply toward the lawn, the article on sloping ground sets out how to take that up without piling offcuts and spare slabs beneath a leg. Remember that same strip carries the barrow of parts on delivery day, so keep the route from the gate open.

The brushing itself moves along nicely; the preparation and the repositioning are what eat time. First you sweep the timber down and rub back the greyed patches, then the first coat goes on and after the drying time the second follows. Because each position reaches only a small slice of the frame, both rounds are done in eight to twelve moves apiece. For a terrace pergola of four metres or so that works out at three to four hire days.

Stain also demands patience between coats. How much is printed on the tin and varies enormously by brand and by type, so schedule that pause instead of wishing it shorter. Out in a garden the weather joins in as well: dew on a terrace does not lift until around midday, and under trees something keeps dropping all afternoon. Anyone doing this in spring therefore rarely starts before ten and packs up well before evening. A settled dry spell matters more to the finish than any brand claim.

Generous booking is cheap cover on a job like this. The full amount applies only while that opening twenty-four hours is running; each following day is added with ninety-five per cent off it, so a spare day held back for rain hardly touches your rental price. Cut it fine and lose a day and you stand at a half stained pergola waiting for another tower to become free. For a bigger frame, this piece on hire duration gives a guide.

A deck measuring 245 centimetres covers roughly one bay of beams. Per position you take on everything falling inside that bay: the underside of the rafter above you, both flanks and the upper face. Keep to that order, because stain running down from the top is brushed out along the sides while it is still wet. Then you move along to the following bay. Skip a face meaning to catch it later and that entire position has to be set up a second time.

Here lies the difference with work that looks similar. When spraying slatted timber the mist does the reaching for you and no face has to be physically touched; here every side has to meet a brush. And unlike staining a carport, where a closed roof sits over you and the work concentrates along the edge and the posts, on a pergola you look straight through the frame and most of the timber hangs above eye level. The number of positions you set up differs sharply between the three as a result.

Expect a great many short moves, then. A pergola of four by three metres carrying five rafters soon runs to eight or twelve positions per coat, and that already counts the uprights you do standing on the paving. Working above your head is slower than working at eye level too: the arm grows heavy, the brush goes down more often and you keep wiping runs off your forearm. Build room for that into your planning and your hire days.

The scaffold reaches you as a bundle of loose parts, counted and complete, which you assemble into a tower yourself. Work out beforehand where those parts are allowed to lie, because the terrace under the pergola is ruled out: the build goes there and you will be walking about with a tin of stain. Grass beside the terrace or a length of drive suits better, provided a barrow can pass. Reserve on a weekday before 15:00 and the parts lie in your garden the next working day.

Both the delivery day and the return day are yours to pin, and on stain work you let the forecast decide them. A run of dry days counts for more here than an early start, since stain drawn into damp timber dries patchy. Putting it together is down to you: the instructions come with the set and the film takes you through the steps in order. Building alone is perfectly possible, though a second pair of hands passing parts up makes it noticeably faster.

Once the final rafter has had its coat you take the tower apart and our van comes round for the parts. Stack them somewhere a trolley can reach rather than behind a bolted gate. Let the stain harden before you handle the tubes, or fresh marks transfer onto the material and prove awkward to polish off later. Count the pieces back into the bundle as you stack them, and nothing has to be chased afterwards. What the run to your province comes to is listed under the cost of delivery.

The platform is proved at 200 kilos per square metre, which EN 1004 records as load class 3. On a tower intended for one user that weight is seldom the limiting factor; the chassis is what governs. A narrow base asks for four stabilisers wound properly out, even though you stand no more than half a metre above the paving. Set them again after every move and look them over the moment somebody on the terrace has caught one with a shoe.

The trap on a pergola is the frame itself. It is tempting to haul yourself up on a rafter, or push off one to travel a little further along, but then the tower rolls out from under you and your weight hangs on the timber. Always move with both feet on the slabs, the deck cleared and the brakes released, then lock the wheels again before climbing. Stop altogether as soon as it starts to blow hard. Rolling with a full tin aboard is how stain ends up across the paving.

Beyond that this is drip work. Stain laid on overhead runs down the handle to your sleeve and then onto the boards, where it leaves a slippery patch behind. Put card down and swap it once it soaks through, wear glasses against splashes, and never carry on while children or guests are sitting under the frame. A tower left standing overnight in a garden also wants its brakes on and its deck cleared. The rest of what applies while hiring a tower is gathered in the safety rules overview.