Cleaning roller shutters? Choose the right scaffold.

For this job you reserve the Altrex RS51: 75 cm slim, with settings that reach from 4.2 metres to 14.2 metres. On a house you need only a portion of that range, and the rest of it stays theoretical. What the narrow measurement buys you is access, because past a fence, across a patio or through a gate to the rear elevation you almost always get through with it. The whole range, model by model, is listed at the mobile towers available for hire.

The wider 135 cm build offers more floor, which sounds appealing when you are working with buckets. In practice you are better off leaving the bucket on the ground and taking only a cloth and a brush up with you, since carrying water onto a platform is precisely what you want to avoid on a wet job. Working alone on a low run, the one person MiTower for single handed jobs, a model reaching 6.2 metres, can also serve.

The 245 cm platform length fits this work well. A standard window is narrower, so you reach the full width of the curtain and both guide rails without repositioning once. You can also take half a step sideways to look along the slats at an angle, and that is exactly when you spot where the dirt is still sitting. On a narrower deck you stand with your nose against the shutter and miss half of it while cleaning roller shutters on a full elevation of windows.

Measure up to the top rim of the shutter box rather than to the head of the window frame. The face and the top of the box collect the heaviest deposit, because rainwater runs off there year after year, and that is precisely the part you need to get at. For windows on the first or second floor of a house you land between six and eight metres. What that particular stand costs you in components is described at eight metres of working height.

That figure holds more than the deck alone: on top of the platform height comes roughly two metres of reach, the distance you cover standing with an arm stretched out. For washing you do not want to be tight on that, because scrubbing above your head with a wet cloth is heavy going and you end up squeezing water down your own sleeve. Hiring one setting higher puts the top edge of the box within easy reach, and saves your shoulders across six shutters.

Fix your zero point where the castors will rest on the ground. Around a house that often differs by half a step between the patio at the back and the pavement at the front, and that difference counts straight into your build. Working along a row of openings on the second floor of the house, measure at the lowest and the highest frame and hire on the basis of the higher of the two. That spares you a second build halfway through the run of windows.

Water comes down when cleaning roller shutters, and that governs where the stand goes. Put the tower squarely under the opening so both guide rails are reachable from one setting, but bear in mind that the slabs beneath you will be wet and slick within a quarter of an hour. On smooth block paving or on moss that is noticeable, so brush the spot where the castors go before you build and set the brakes. The same holds on a timber deck, which darkens and turns greasy even faster.

The four stabilisers angle outwards and want a flat, firm surface underneath. Beneath windows you often meet a border, a gravel strip along the wall, a crawl space hatch or a terrace edge sitting in just the wrong place. Lay a stout board or a levelling pad there and shift loose planters before the components are delivered. On a garden that falls away, the note on uneven ground gives you the way to take that up tidily without shifting the whole stand along.

Think too about where the dirty water goes. A shutter guide gives up a grey sludge of dust and cobweb that leaves a streak on pale slabs and stays visible even longer on timber. Site the stand so you can rinse afterwards with a hose, and cover a planted border if you are using a cleaning agent. A bucket standing on the ground beside the foot of the tower beats a full one up on the platform, if only for the weight of it.

The washing itself goes quickly. The curtain of an average window is done from top to bottom in half an hour, and brushing out the two guide rails takes about as long again. For four to six shutters on one elevation, two of you will fill a day, including erecting the tower and clearing up. The clock only really starts on the one part of this job you cannot hurry along, however early you begin in the morning and however many hands you have.

That part is the drying. A curtain rolled up wet traps moisture between the slats, and that leads to streaks, deposit inside the box and, in time, a shutter that runs stiffly. So you leave it hanging down until it is genuinely dry, and on an overcast or humid day that takes noticeably longer than on a breezy afternoon. Hence the usual choice of two hire days: wash on the first, then check and roll up on the second once the air has done its work.

That second day barely registers in the rental price. The whole sum is settled over one day and night, while a discount of ninety five per cent runs on every day you add, so waiting for dry weather is close to free. Book too tightly and you roll up a damp curtain because the van is due, and then the whole clean was wasted. More on the choice between tight and generous booking is in the article about how many hire days a job takes.

On a 245 cm platform, cleaning roller shutters means exactly one shutter within reach per setting, sometimes two where the windows sit close together. Lower the curtain fully first and lock the operating gear, so it cannot shoot upwards while you are scrubbing at it. Then work downwards, slat by slat, with plenty of suds and a soft brush. Rinse off with clean water before the suds dry in the sun and leave a bloom over the whole face of the curtain.

Then take the guide rails in hand separately. Dust, grit and cobweb gather in the channel on both sides and make the curtain drag; get that out with a thin brush or a narrow cloth and flush the channel through from top to bottom. If your shutter runs on a zip along its edges, follow the whole length of that track, because a single grain in it makes itself felt the moment you wind the shutter back up towards its box.

Finish by checking rather than by rolling up. Feel whether the curtain is dry on both faces, including the underside of the slats where they overlap, and look for standing water in the box. Then run the shutter fully up and down once and listen for an even travel. Do that while you are still on the scaffold, because a binding guide rail cannot be examined from the ground, let alone adjusted with a screwdriver once the tower has gone.

The tower arrives in loose parts: uprights, braces, decks, guard rails, castors and the stabilisers, all counted through beforehand. Find a dry spot for them that is not underneath the windows, because that is where the wash water will be splashing later. A drive, a carport or a piece of lawn to one side does the job. Get your order in on a working day while the clock is still short of three, and delivery follows on the working day after that.

Arrival and return are dates you name yourself, and on this job the forecast decides them for you. A dry spell with a bit of wind is ideal, because the curtain will hang dry by the afternoon. Building the tower remains your work, with the manual and the assembly film within reach; two people manage it easily at this height. If you would rather drive, free collection is arranged at Zeeburgerpad 89 in Amsterdam on a day that suits you both.

When every shutter is clean and running smoothly again, we come for the components. You break the tower down, count the parts as you go and lay the whole set ready at the spot you agreed. Only roll up and only start dismantling once you are certain nothing is still dripping. What bringing and removing costs in your own province can be found at the delivery charges including VAT, so the figure is in your plan from the start.

The platform meets EN 1004 at load class 3, putting the safe load at two hundred kilos for each square metre of flooring. For cleaning roller shutters that capacity is ample, particularly if you keep your bucket down below. If you do put a full bucket up there, stand it in the middle of the deck rather than up against a guard rail, because ten litres of water slops with every movement and pulls at your arms as you lift it.

The usual agreements hold here too. Brake the castors before anybody climbs up, do not move the assembly with anyone or anything still standing on it, and stop once the wind gets strong. That matters on this job because an unrolled curtain hangs in the wind like a large flat sheet and tugs at its rails. All the instructions that apply during a hire period are collected at safe work at height and repay ten minutes of reading before the first lift goes up.

The danger that belongs to cleaning roller shutters is slipping. Suds dripping off your cloth land on your own platform and aluminium turns lethally slick with it, so wipe the floor dry between windows and work in shoes with a tread. Keep the zone under you clear, because a dropped brush or a knocked over bottle of cleaner lands exactly on the slabs where somebody else is rinsing. Warn whoever is working below before you start out with a bucket of suds and a hose.