Installing a sign? Choose the right scaffold.

For fitting work on facade signage you take the Altrex RS52, the version 135 cm wide. That has everything to do with what travels up with you: the sign itself, a set of anchors, the hammer drill with its dust extraction, a level and the tools for making the connection. On a floor of 135 by 245 cm all of that goes down without anyone tripping over anyone else's kit. The overview of mobile scaffolds in the hire fleet puts the models beside one another.

We carry this model in working heights starting at 4.2 metres and going as far as 14.2, and for signage on the second or third storey you pick a build of 8 to 12 metres out of it. The platform length of 245 cm is at the same time your measure for how much sign you can hang per set-up. If the box fits inside it you hang it in one go; longer than that and you fit it in sections, moving between them, which can cost half a day.

A one person tower such as the MiTower drops out on this job, however handy it is elsewhere. You do not lift, aim and hold a sign on your own, so there are always two of you up top and they do not fit on that deck together. The narrow RS51 at 75 cm is for the case where the access to the facade allows nothing wider. You then stand more cramped at the exact moment you hold the box against the wall and start the first bolt.

When installing a sign you measure not to what hangs there but to where it is going. Take the drawing or the design, settle the height for the top edge of the box and mark that point off on the facade. With signage above a shopfront, on the second or the third storey, that comes to 8 to 12 metres of reach. The deck itself lands between 6 and 10 metres, because your arms still cover about 2 metres above it.

You start measuring at the paving where the castors will stand. At a building with a kerb, a recessed entrance or a street that falls away, that starting point shifts and with it the whole build you need. Take the topmost anchors into your measurement as well, because they sit higher than the bottom edge of the sign you are looking at. If in doubt, work from the top of the frame and not from the top of the lettering. What a working height of 12 metres brings you is on that page.

Book too tight and you notice it when you line the sign up. You have to be able to sight along the top edge to see whether the box runs true with the windows below, and that fails when you are peering upwards. A level, too, is better laid against the profile at chest height than held over your head, where you can hardly keep it still. So choose the build that puts the sign flat in front of you, roughly at the height of your own chest.

Installing a sign happens on the street side, so your arrangement stands on the pavement and sometimes partly in a parking bay. Fence that zone off before you start. Dust and grit fall while you drill, and a little later a sign is hanging above the heads of passers by who know nothing about it. Keep a way through along the facade for the shop's customers, and agree with the trader when you are in front of the door and when you clear it.

Paving is fine ground to work from, provided you look at where the stabilisers come down. A tree pit, a falling gutter line, a manhole cover or a cellar hatch are exactly the places you do not want them. On a build of ten metres those four feet decide how still your tower stands, and standing still is everything while you align: a deck that moves turns levelling into guesswork. So read what applies to the height of a mobile scaffold before you hire.

Sort the practical things well before the delivery date: consent from the council if you stand on the public highway, a spot where the van may unload, and power for your drill. That last one gets forgotten. A cable reel running across the pavement is a trip hazard, so lead the cable along the facade or hang it up. Reserve a length of pavement as well where the sign can lie until the moment it goes up, flat and out of the wind.

This job rarely fits inside one day. On the first day you raise the tower, mark out the positions, drill the holes and set the anchors. On the second the sign goes up, gets aligned, is bolted home and connected. In between, with chemical anchors, sits the curing time the maker prints on the cartridge, and you do not skip it, because otherwise your sign hangs on anchors the resin has not yet gripped. That waiting is the reason a single hire day never covers this.

So book two hire days as standard and put a third behind them if you are unsure. That costs less than people think: the whole tariff applies to the opening twenty four hours only, while each day you add after that is reduced by 95 per cent. What a period comes to in total you work out from the amounts on the page with prices. A day of slack also gives you air when the electrician can only call later for the connection, or when the sign arrives a day late.

Then reckon with things outside your own planning. A sign of any size is not hung in wind, and above a shop doorway you often work only at quiet hours. Delivery of the box itself sometimes slips a day too, and then you do not want your arrangement collected that morning. So set your collection date one day past the point at which you expect to be finished, and simply let us know as soon as the sign hangs.

Begin with the setting out. Measure from a fixed point in the facade, a storey band or the head of the shopfront, and mark your centre lines with a long level or a cross line laser. Only when those lines are right does the drill come out. Working with a sign wider than your platform, run a string between the outer points so the anchors land at one height across two set-ups. Move the tower only once every hole in that field is drilled and blown clean.

The sign goes up on a rope along the outside, with somebody below guiding it and watching the barrier. Never climb the internal ladder carrying it: you need both hands and the panel catches wind on the way. Up top you take it with two, fix the upper points loosely first, check the line and only then pull everything tight. Last of all you make the supply connection and finish the cable entry weathertight, which is the point at which the sign is genuinely installed rather than merely hanging.

The contrast with the opposite job is large. When you are removing an advertising sign the weight travels down and you finish with anchor holes to fill. When you install, everything goes up, the emphasis falls on aligning, fixing and connecting, and the facade is occupied afterwards rather than bare. So plan more time here for measuring and less for clearing up, and count on correcting the last centimetres with two people while the box already hangs on its top anchors.

Your mobile scaffold arrives in loose parts, the full set counted off, at whatever spot you have pointed out. With a building on a busy street you settle that beforehand: on the pavement inside your barrier, or in a parking bay you have kept free. Book on a working day with your order in before 15:00 and the set travels to the address on the next working day. Then you can build a day early and start installing a sign the next morning.

Assembling the tower is work for you; our driver only unloads the parts. A manual comes with it, and the instruction video online demonstrates the sequence step by step. With two fitters you are standing at height inside half a day, provided all the parts lie within reach. So choose your dates so the building does not coincide with the busiest hours of the street, or you will spend most of it on people wanting to get past.

Once the sign hangs and the lighting burns, the tower comes apart and you lay the parts ready for the return trip. We come by on the date you picked, so see that everything lies together where the van can pull up for a moment. Count the parts as you dismantle rather than afterwards, and the handling of the hire runs without fuss. What bringing and fetching cost differs per province and stands with the delivery rates per province, including VAT.

The floor under your feet falls in load class 3 to EN 1004 and may take 200 kg per square metre. On fitting work you fill that faster than on other facade jobs: two fitters, a hammer drill, a box of anchors, a sign and sometimes a battery pack or a transformer. Spread it over the deck, lay the box against the wall side rather than on the edge, and take down whatever you no longer need after each set-up.

The basic rules stand: brakes on before anybody climbs, nothing and nobody aboard while the tower is moved, and work stopped when it blows hard. On this job the panel itself is added to that, because a sign you send up on a rope turns on its axis in a gust. So pick a quiet morning, and keep the panel roped until both top fixings are through. More on the limits at height is in the explanation of safe working at height.

Below you there is public that does not look up. So work with a tool lanyard, keep a bucket or a bag on the platform for bolts and bits, and leave nothing lying on the edge. Wear eye protection while drilling and mind the cable you are connecting: switch the circuit off before you start on wires. Leave your barrier standing until the sign is properly fixed and nothing more can fall, even once you are back down yourself.