Spray-painting a ceiling? Choose the right scaffold.

For spray-painting a ceiling inside a house the Altrex RS44 comes first, the room scaffold cut out for interior jobs. Its parts pass through a door frame of roughly 70 cm, which counts for more here than on other work: you carry them in before the room is parcelled up, and out again afterwards across a floor that by then lies under film. The less humping about that takes, the fewer tears appear in your covering. That alone argues for hiring the narrow indoor model rather than something broader.

The footprint of the base matters for a second reason. A compact build leaves more bare floor for the film you unroll in strips, and in a wrapped room you have little appetite for edging past a leg that sticks out. Anyone who would hire a mobile scaffold of the wide sort because more material has to go aloft is misreading this job: almost nothing goes up with you. What else stands ready and where the differences lie is set out under room scaffolds for interior work.

On the 245 cm deck you carry remarkably little: the gun, a spare tin or a filled pot, and nothing further that can collect mist. Whatever you leave up there ends up wearing a fine layer, your tool case included. That bare deck is precisely what you want, since you shuffle sideways along it with your eyes turned upward. Where a ceiling sits higher than a room scaffold reaches, above a stairwell or in a tall hall, the one-person MiTower on hire covers 4.2 to 6.2 metres.

Your working height on this job is the deck you stand on with about two metres of reach added, and here those two metres deserve to be taken seriously. You do not hold the gun flat against the surface but half to three quarters of a metre off it, or you lay down a thick running band instead of an even film. So you stand lower than somebody working with a roller, sometimes a full platform stand lower, and when you book that is the one difference that genuinely matters.

Measure from the bare floor up to the ceiling and allow for whatever is still leaving the room. At the usual heights of 2.60 to 3 metres, this model with its 3 to 4 metres is exactly sufficient. Only above a stairwell, in a void or under a sloping roof do you check separately whether this build still serves, because there the surface often runs on to five metres. The guide to working on the ground floor sets out the heights you meet there.

Build too high and the gun comes too close to the surface, with the drips telling you inside a minute that something is wrong. Build too low and you spray at a slant, the mist meets the plane at an angle and you lose material into the air. On a job that lasts an hour you read that difference straight off the finished surface, so adjust the stand calmly before your first pass rather than during it. Resetting a platform stand takes ten minutes, which is nothing against a whole extra pass.

On this job the order of things counts for more than the place. Empty the room, stand the scaffold, and only then finish the covering, because film you walk over with tubes and legs tears exactly where you cannot see it. Leave a patch of floor bare around each castor, or double the film there, so the material is not dragged along the moment you wheel on. Turn that order round and you are patching tape at your very first position.

Beyond that you want a clear run that reaches into the corners of the room. Spray-painting a ceiling takes you everywhere, including above the spot where a sofa normally stands. A heating pipe, a deep window board or a door that opens inwards helps decide where the stabilisers can still swing out. Check that while the room is bare, not once everything lies under plastic and you can no longer reach anything. A wrong guess costs half a masking day.

Finally, think about the air route. You need a window or a door the mist can leave through, and you have to reach it without walking across wet work. So stand the scaffold in such a way that your last position lies on the exit side and you step outside with the gun still in your hand. Mark that final position on your plan before the scaffold even goes up. If the walls come next in the same week, that method is described under painting walls.

The arithmetic of spray-painting a ceiling runs against the feeling. For an average room a good part of a day disappears into emptying it, stretching film, taping frames and setting the edges along the wall neatly. The spraying that follows often takes under an hour, even where the ceiling is a large one. After that the mist has to settle and the space has to be aired through before you can begin pulling any of that plastic off again. That imbalance is what your hire period has to cover.

In practice that puts you at two hire days: a masking day with the assembly included, and a day on which you spray, let it dry and clear up. Want a second coat and half a day of waiting joins in, so you book a third. Several rooms in a row simply roll the same rhythm forward while the tower stays standing between two masking rounds. What other jobs ask for is set out in the explanation of hire periods. Book both days in one stretch rather than as two separate blocks.

Being finished quickly is no argument for a short booking. Every day after the first is billed with ninety-five per cent removed, so an extra day for airing or for lifting the film calmly hardly shifts the rental price at all. And if you overrun because the masking bit back, the last thing you want is the van already heading your way. Set your collection a full day after your spraying day and use that final morning for clearing up.

A working deck of 245 cm hands you a strip of a good two metres per position, and for spray-painting a ceiling that is a comfortable size: you run the length of the platform out in one calm, even movement without turning your wrist. Divide the ceiling into strips that overlap each other by a hand's width. Begin on the side furthest from the door, so you neither box yourself in nor have to walk back across fresh work. Set those strips out on paper before the scaffold goes up.

Wheeling on goes faster than with brushwork, and that is precisely why people forget the brakes. Lay the gun down, step off, release the castors, roll one platform length, lock them again and only then climb. At every move look at where the hose or the lead is sitting: across smooth plastic a hose slides cheerfully along with you and drags your masking away from the skirting. You notice that only once mist has crept in under the tape. Lift the hose clear over the guard rail each time you wheel on.

Beyond that, take as little as you can up with you. Everything that stays on the deck collects mist, and you carry that through the rest of the house later on. For a room of four by five metres you come out at some eight positions per coat, and you take them one after another in a single continuous run without a pause. Nothing else earns a place on that deck while you are up there. If brush and roller suit you better, that method sits under painting a ceiling by hand.

A counted set of separate components arrives at the house. Agree where that stack is to end up, because it cannot lie in the room itself: that one stands empty, waiting for film. A hallway, a shed or a utility room answers better. Booking runs until 15:00 on a weekday, and anything logged before then travels out on the following working day. Aim the drop at the morning you empty and mask, so nothing waits about. A short carry from stack to doorway saves more time than it sounds like.

Assembly remains on your side of the line. A manual travels with the set, and the video runs through the order in which the components meet; two of you will be standing on the deck within the hour. We hand nothing over erected, indoors any more than out. Both dates are yours to choose, which suits this work, since you want the parts indoors a day ahead of masking. Fetching them yourself is fine too, at no charge, on an agreed slot at our Zeeburgerpad depot in Amsterdam.

Afterwards we drive round for the parts; you take the build apart and lay everything out complete. Only do that once the space has been aired through and the surface feels dry, or you will be shifting tubes with wet mist still on your hands. Lift the film away first and the scaffold second, so you never walk over plastic carrying components. Count the parts through as you stack them, then nothing has to be hunted for. What delivery to your own province costs is listed under delivery and collection charges.

Load class 3 goes with these scaffolds: 200 kg is allowed on each square metre, a boundary that EN 1004 fixes. On spray work you stay far below it, because you go up with an appliance and a tin and nothing more. The risk on this job sits somewhere else entirely. Keep both hands free and let nothing lie loose on the platform you move across while your head is tipped back. You are the only real load on that deck, and the appliance you carry weighs a fraction of what is allowed.

Do not forget to lock the castors before you climb, and never shift the build while a person or a load is on it. On an indoor floor lined with plastic a tower slides away sooner than on a paved path, and the material on the deck turns glassy the moment mist begins settling on it. Replace that sheet once it begins to gleam, or work off a bare deck and clean the tubes down afterwards. The second option also pays off at the final check when the set goes back.

The real issue with indoor work is the air. Wear a mask matched to the material you are using, open a window and keep the door to the rest of the house closed, so the mist does not draw into the hall and up the stairs. Do not work on your own with solvent based material, and take your breaks outside. Have somebody stand in the doorway to keep an eye on you while the room is thick with mist. The rules that always apply are gathered under working safely at height.