Removing an advertising sign? Choose the right scaffold.

This job asks for the RS52, the wide Altrex version measuring 135 cm across the tower. The reason is the sign itself: it comes off the wall and has to go somewhere before it travels down. On a narrow floor two people end up pressed together while holding a panel; on the wide one you can lay it flat or stand it against the guardrail. What else stands in the mobile scaffold hire range is set out for comparison on that page.

We hire this type in working heights running between 4.2 and 14.2 metres; facade signage on the second or third storey puts you at 8 to 12. The 245 cm of platform length also decides how much sign you can handle per set-up: a light box of two metres falls inside that measure, lettering across the whole frontage does not. With a long construction like that you take the sign off in parts and roll along a few times in between. Count that into your planning.

A narrow RS51, just 75 cm across, only enters the picture where access to the facade leaves no choice, at a business down an alley or behind a gate. You then give up deck room at precisely the moment it matters most, which is the taking off itself. If the signage hangs indoors instead, on a wall in a showroom or in an entrance hall, the job belongs to a room scaffold for interior use rather than for a tower on the street.

When you are removing an advertising sign you measure to its top edge, and then a bit higher still, because the uppermost anchors usually hide behind that edge. Where the box sits over a shop front two or three storeys up, you come out at 8 to 12 metres. Translate that into the build you reserve: under your working height sits a platform, some 2 metres of reach is added on top of it, so your deck on this job stands somewhere between 6 and 10 metres above the street.

Put the end of your tape on the street level where the castors will be, not on the threshold of the shop. At a frontage with a step or a recessed entrance that alone is half a metre in your build. Look at the sign too, because a light box often projects ten to twenty centimetres from the wall and you have to reach across that depth. The builds that suit a property of several storeys are listed under working on the second floor.

Reserve too low and a removal will not let you get away with it. The top bolts then sit above your head, you are turning a rusted nut with straight arms, and the sign tips towards you the moment it comes loose. That is precisely the scenario you do not want with ten kilos or more of panel in your hands. So book the build in which the top of the sign ends up about chest high, rather than the one that leaves you looking upward.

Removing an advertising sign rarely happens above a quiet back garden. The arrangement lands on a footway, sometimes half in a parking bay or on a loading spot, and somebody walks past all day long. Barrier the zone under the sign with fencing or tape before you touch a single bolt, and keep a walking route along the wall so people do not duck under you on impulse. Talk to the trader beforehand about opening hours and about where his customers and deliveries go.

Under the castors there is paving, which is pleasant to work from: flat, hard and load bearing. Do watch for manhole covers, a sunken cellar hatch, a tree pit or a sloping gutter along the frontage, because a stabiliser always wants to stand right there. Those four stabilisers reach out at an angle and at this height they are not optional, so they need room inside your barrier. How such a tall arrangement is set up is covered in the explanation of bracing and tying in.

Standing on the public highway means consent from the council, and you arrange that well before the delivery day. Ask at the same time where the van may stop to unload, because a shopping street with timed access will not allow that at any hour. Finally, keep a place free for the sign you are taking off. A panel three metres long cannot simply be leaned against a shop window while you carry on working above, and it certainly cannot stand where the tower has to roll.

Removing an advertising sign seldom runs to more than a couple of hours on the tools. The day fills up with everything around it: barriering the zone, making the supply dead, breaking loose anchors that have sat there for years, bringing the sign down in parts and then carting it away. For a single light box above a shopfront you therefore reckon on a full working day. If the lettering runs the whole width, you move along in between and land on two days. Count the building and the dismantling in as well.

Then comes the making good, and that shapes your hire period just as much. Filling anchor holes, sealing a cable entry and touching in the bare patch takes half a day, plus curing time for the mortar or the sealant you use. Wanting to finish that from the same arrangement means the tower stays up for it. A day of slack costs little: after the opening twenty four hours every further hire day is counted with 95 per cent off, as the tariff page shows.

Reckon on the weather and on the business underneath as well. Strong wind stops the work, and with a large sign that happens sooner than on other facade jobs. On top of that you cannot usually hang above an entrance at any hour, so you work early in the morning or after closing. Interruptions like that are absorbed by setting your collection date a day wider than your plan says, which on a tower hire is cheaper than starting again.

Work from the top down and from the outside in. First the capping and the end profiles come away, then you disconnect the supply and cap the cable, and only when the sign is genuinely dead do you start on the brackets. Leave the two middle fixings until last, so the panel hangs where it belongs right to the end and never swings free on one bracket. With 245 cm of platform length you have somewhere to put tools and loose sections while you do it.

Bringing it down is the real work. Small panels you pass over the guardrail with two people to somebody in the street, but anything heavier is lowered outside the tower on a line, with the zone beneath it fenced off. Never take a panel with you through the internal ladder: both your hands are needed on the rungs and the thing catches wind on the way. If the sign is wide, roll along in between and take it away in lengths of no more than two metres.

Here is where this differs from the opposite job. With installing a sign everything travels up and it turns on aligning, drilling, fixing and connecting. Removing an advertising sign sends the weight downwards instead, and you finish with a facade to close: holes filled, the entry sealed and the discoloured outline around the old sign dealt with. Plan that repair inside the same hire period, or you will be back two weeks later with another tower and another delivery to pay for.

The tower turns up in loose components, counted through, and the driver leaves them where you have said. In a shopping street that needs thought: a stack of tubes on the footway is in the way and sometimes half of it walks. So point out a corner behind your barrier, or have it unloaded at a moment when the street is empty and nobody is trying to walk through the drop. An order fixed on a working day before 15:00 comes your way the following working day.

The date it arrives and the date it leaves are yours to choose. At retail premises you would rather build outside opening hours, so ask for the set a day early and put it together first thing. That assembling is your part of the job: the manual travels with the parts and you look at the instruction video beforehand. Collecting the set yourself is free by arrangement at Zeeburgerpad 89 in Amsterdam, provided your van will take it.

Once the repair is done you strip the tower and lay everything out for the return trip. Put the parts together where the van can stop without blocking the road, and count them off as you dismantle. The old sign does not belong in that pile, because disposing of it is yours to arrange. Only clear your barrier when the last tube has left the footway. What the trip out and back cost varies by province and is listed at the rates per region.

At this height you work with EN 1004 in the back of your mind. The platform falls in load class 3 and carries 200 kg per square metre, which sounds generous until you add up two fitters, a cordless drill, a box of tools and half a light box. Lay heavy sections down close to the uprights rather than out in the middle of the deck, and send them to the ground as soon as they are free instead of gathering them up top.

Brake the castors as soon as anyone steps on, never shift the arrangement with a tool or a fitter still aboard, and stop once it starts to blow. That last rule is no formality on facade signage: a loose panel catches wind across its whole area and pulls at your arms exactly as you take it off. So pick a still morning and keep an eye on the forecast, which is also covered by the rules for working at height.

The other half of the story is on the ground. People walk past without looking up, so your barrier is not a formality but your main measure. Work with a tool lanyard, gather screws and small profiles into a bucket or a bag and leave nothing on the edge of the platform. Station somebody in the street while a panel is lowered, to guard the zone and to steady the sign before it swings against the shopfront glass below.