Painting windows? Choose the right scaffold.

For the moving parts of your windows the RS51 is the model you want: 75 cm slim, with a build running from 4.2 to 14.2 metres of reach. That narrow width is not a compromise on this job but a gain, since a light that swings outwards needs room and a broad tower simply puts you in your own way. The rest of what the series offers appears where we cover rolling towers for decorating work. Look at the swing of your own casements before you settle on a width to hire.

Up on the boards you need very little area when you are coating a sash. A kettle of paint, one brush, a small roller, a sheet of abrasive and a rag of white spirit make up the load, and a bigger deck would stand empty all day. The dimension that does make a difference is the 245 cm of platform length, because that lets you stand beside the window rather than square in front of it. From that sideways position you can swing the light open while your feet stay on the tower.

The RS52, the version measuring 135 cm across, only comes into play where two decorators work one elevation together or where a great deal of material has to go up. On windows that extra width mostly buys you a problem, because as soon as a light swings outwards the deck reaches into the opening and the sash cannot pass. A tower you cannot open a casement past is the wrong one to hire, however cheap. If the choice is unclear, look at the comparison of what the various models measure before booking.

Painting windows means counting from the bottom upwards: the lights at ground level, those on the first floor and usually an attic window above. Your topmost point is the head of the uppermost sash, and on an ordinary house that sits four to six metres up. To cover the whole elevation, hire a working height between 6 and 8 metres. The figure you book is not the height of the boards you stand on: take the platform height and add about 2 metres of reach, the span your arms and shoulders cover.

Unlike the surrounding joinery, you do not want to tower over this work. A sash is coated from top to bottom in continuous strokes, and while you do it the lower part of the rebate has to stay in view with the light standing open. Set the deck too high and you peer down into the sash with the bottom rail out of sight, which is precisely where paint gathers and runs. Choose a stance that puts the middle of the window at about chest height in front of you.

Run the tape from whatever surface the castors will finish on. A drive falling away towards the road, or a garden laid a slab lower than the terrace, moves that starting point by tens of centimetres. When in doubt take the roomier build, since an unused top deck bothers nobody while half a metre short means finishing the attic window at full stretch. What that means in practice is shown on the page about windows at the second storey.

Where you stand matters more on this job than on any other decorating work. A light hinged to swing outwards sweeps half a metre into the space in front of the wall, and that space must contain no tube and no guard rail. So put the tower beside the window and not squarely before it, with the deck about level with the middle of the sash. Then you open the light, coat the rebate inside the meeting edge, and simply leave the sash standing open until the paint is hard.

Below the opening the ground needs to be flat and free for the four stabilisers. On windows that usually means a sheet over the border, the wheelie bin moved and the garden furniture pushed aside, because whatever drips off a brush lands on that exact strip. Allow for the place your paint kettles and tins stand between laps as well, since they want to be off the deck and out of the sun. Where you work on the street side, tape off a section so nobody walks beneath a light standing open.

Look, too, at everything on the wall that moves. A casement stay, an opening shutter, a roller blind box or a planter on the ledge can foul your stand at the moment you swing the sash, and that is usually discovered with a wet brush in your hand. Test it before you start painting windows, because a light tapping a guard rail while the finish is still soft means damage straight away. Where the ground falls away, see how to deal with a sloping standing place.

No window gets finished in one continuous go. You sand, you fill the small holes, you prime the bare patches, you finish, and sometimes you finish a second time. Drying sits between those steps, and how long it lasts depends on the product and on the weather that day, not on your diary. For the sashes of a complete elevation you therefore arrive at three to four days with the tower standing, even though the actual painting may only fill a few hours a day.

The season plays its part. Paint wants dry timber and a temperature that does not fall away overnight, while towards evening damp settles along the wall on sashes that are still standing open. In spring and autumn that means starting early and stopping early, so the finish is hard enough to close the window before the air cools. Reckon on shorter working days than you are used to, and hire the tower for a day longer than your programme suggests.

Charging makes that affordable. Only the opening day is settled in full, and from then on each further day is billed with ninety five per cent knocked off, so an extra drying day stays a modest line at the end. Set against building a second time it is nothing at all. A tower collected while a sash still stands open to dry, on the other hand, is a genuine problem. What others allow for decorating is described in the overview of hire duration.

Painting windows costs you two stances per light rather than one, and that is the fact your hire period really turns on. You coat the outer face, then the narrow meeting edge, then the rebate the light drops into, and that rebate is only in view with the sash standing open. A ladder cannot be parked where an open light swings, which is why this job goes on a tower at all. So reckon on nudging the hired stand a short way for each of those faces.

When you come to the finish, the meeting edge is what stretches the hire. Two fresh coats pressed against one another bond and tear open the next time you pull the window, so the sash has to stand open until the paint is genuinely hard rather than merely touch dry. That is hours rather than minutes, and they are hours in which the tower simply stays where it is. Wedge the light meanwhile with a stay or a timber block, so a gust cannot swing it shut on you.

You generally do one window per position, nudging the tower a short way along partway through so you can reach the hinge side as well. Carry your materials up in one journey, because 245 cm of platform holds them easily and every extra climb costs five minutes out of a day that is already short. If the surrounding joinery is on your list for the same round, do that first and keep the sashes until last. That order also keeps the hire down to a single build.

What arrives is a package of loose components which the driver counts before he pulls away. Find a spot for it that you will not need while painting windows, because the run along the brickwork stays reserved for paint kettles and dust sheets. Order on a weekday and beat the 15:00 cut off, and everything comes out to you the next working day. Which date that is remains your decision, as does the day we take it away again at the end.

Building it is your own work, guided by the printed manual and the film that goes with it, and at this height a pair of people are busy for about an hour. Plan that for the day before you start sanding, because a decorating day wants to open the moment it is light and dry, not with an hour of spanners and carrying. Look at the outlook while you are at it: a dry week with mild nights matters far more for paint on windows than one sunny day with rain behind it.

Once the final coat is hard and every sash can close again, we come round to take the lot back. You break the stand down and set the components somewhere a van can pull in without blocking the footway. Get paint spots off the decking before they dry and you save yourself scraping at them with a blade on the last morning. The sum for those journeys is fixed per province and can be read under the rates for delivery.

A square metre of decking may carry 200 kg, which EN 1004 files under load class 3. Painting windows never comes close to it, since a kettle and a brush weigh nothing worth mentioning. What does count is that you stand in one place leaning and stretching towards the top corner of a sash. Move the tower half a metre rather than reaching out over the rail, even though it costs you a couple of minutes at every window along the elevation.

The standing rules apply in full. Brake the castors before you climb, never move the stand along while a person or a kettle is aboard, and put the work down when the wind freshens. Wind is an extra factor here, because an open light slamming shut can catch a brush, a kettle or your arm, and the glass may not survive it. So wedge every window you open and check after each move that the four stabilisers are bearing firmly again.

Finally, watch what can fall or drip. Paint, white spirit and a glazing bead that springs loose all land exactly where people walk by or where a car is parked. Sheet the ground up, tape the strip off and warn the neighbours if you are working right on the boundary. A leaking kettle at six metres makes a far greater mess than you imagine beforehand, especially on block paving. Everything else worth knowing sits under the rules around work at height.