Removing a satellite dish? Choose the right scaffold.

For stripping a dish off brickwork the sensible pick is the Altrex RS TOWER 52, the wide version whose deck measures 135 cm across. What separates this from a fitting job is the direction the material travels: everything comes towards you rather than away from you. Reflector, arm, mast, bracket and a length of tired coaxial cable all arrive on the boards at once, and they need somewhere to lie without becoming a trip hazard underfoot. Each available build is listed among the mobile towers in our hire fleet.

The narrow 75 cm version manages it too, but then you work in two rounds and send the reflector down partway through. That costs a climb, and unbolting is exactly the stage where breaking off is unwelcome. Only when the route to the wall is too tight for a wide frame, a garden door of eighty centimetres for instance, does the slimmer size become the better answer. Both sit side by side in the comparison of the two deck widths, which settles it quickly.

That deck length of 245 cm earns its keep as a sorting bench. A tray for bolts, nuts and washers goes at one end, the components you have freed go at the other, and the middle stays clear as walking room. Then at every stage of removing a satellite dish you know where each piece went, and you are not shuffling ironmongery about with your boots. It also lets the old coax be coiled rather than left snaking across the boards where somebody will catch it.

Your measuring point is the underside of the wall bracket, since that is where the final anchors come out and where you will stand longest. When the assembly hangs just below the gutter of a three storey house, removing a satellite dish suits a build covering 8 to 12 metres. Take the deck height you mean to stand on and count roughly two further metres of arm reach on top of it; that total is the working height you order. Start by looking at what ten metres of reach actually delivers.

Err high rather than low. When a seized bolt finally yields you want to be pressing downwards instead of dragging upwards, because that puts your body weight behind the bar without you hanging off the wall itself. That only happens when the workpiece sits somewhere between chest and waist. So choose the build from the lowest bolt on the bracket and never from the top rim of the reflector, which stands a good deal higher and will quietly mislead your whole calculation.

Measure where the components have to end up as well. If a bucket or a rope is going to take the reflector down, the distance from boards to ground belongs in the plan too. At the level of a second floor that is already a serious length of line. Be generous with it, because a rope that just fails to reach leaves you holding a heavy hollow panel at deck level with nowhere sensible to set it down while you think about the problem.

The setup goes directly under the point where the bracket is fixed, which on most houses means the street elevation. The base wants level ground with a margin all round, since the stabilisers swing outwards rather than tucking under the frame. Paving or a drive will carry it; a border of soil along the wall, or a path sunk on one side, will not. Park the castors where you will not keep correcting them, because this job is mostly pulling and pushing against stubborn fixings rather than reaching gently sideways with a brush.

Keep a clear strip below where freed components are allowed to land. A reflector coming down on a line needs that room, and bicycles, a car or planters must not be in it. Where the pavement runs underneath, set out a cone or a length of tape while removing a satellite dish, and give the neighbours notice when their car sits right below you. On ground that falls away, the method for an uneven surface sorts the levelling.

Think about the point where the cable disappears into the wall too. That hole often sits a couple of metres to one side of the bracket, or below it, and it needs sealing as well. Choose a standing position from which both the bracket and that entry fall within arm's length, otherwise you are dropping the tower and rebuilding it for the sake of one grommet. Walk the line of the cable at ground level before any parts arrive, and mark the entry point with chalk so it is not forgotten later.

The unbolting itself is a matter of hours. Disconnect the cable, lift the reflector clear of the mast, take the arm away, slide the mast out of its bracket and release four anchors, and with ordinary tools a morning covers it, unless the threads have rusted solid. What stretches the work is making good afterwards. Filling holes, sealing the entry and washing the wall belong to the same visit, and you want them behind you before the components go back on the lorry.

So plan on two days. Day one covers the build and freeing the installation from the wall. Day two covers repairing the brickwork and taking the structure apart again. If repair mortar or a facade sealant comes into it, that wants curing time before anything else goes over the top. Rain on your repair day is reason enough to slide everything twenty four hours, since damp masonry will not take filler at all. Let the collection date you choose reflect that likelihood before you confirm it.

The extra day is not an expensive one. The full rate applies to the first day alone; every further day is discounted by ninety five per cent, which makes an allowance for slippage almost free and keeps the rental price predictable. Finish early and you simply ask us to come sooner. Working out a realistic span for removing a satellite dish is easier with this guide to judging the length of a job open beside your diary and a look at the coming week of weather.

One dish falls within reach of a single 245 cm setup, so the tower stays put until the wall is closed up again. Begin at the top with the cable rather than the bracket: uncouple the coax, tape the cut end so moisture cannot creep in, and leave it hanging until the rest has gone. Then the reflector comes off the mast, clamp bolts on the arm first and the panel itself last. Reverse that and removing a satellite dish leaves you steadying half an assembly still tethered.

After that the arm and the mast come away, and only then the bracket. Four anchors hold it in the brickwork, and those fixings will have suffered most over the years. A long socket bar beats a cordless driver at this point, and penetrating oil applied a quarter of an hour ahead saves a great deal of grunting on the boards. Grind the studs back flush into the stone and keep the freed plugs together in one tray instead of letting them scatter loose across the boards of the deck.

Finish by closing the holes. The four anchor holes take a facade filler matched to your brick, and the cable entry is sealed from outside so neither water nor vermin gets behind it. Do all of that while you are still standing up there, because from ground level none of it is reachable. That single point is the argument for keeping the scaffold standing one more day rather than racing the collection lorry and leaving four open holes in a wall you cannot reach again.

What turns up is a complete, counted set of loose components rather than a finished structure. Pick the drop spot in advance and keep it off the ground where the old reflector will later come down, or everything gets carried twice. A front garden or the path beside the door suits nicely. A weekday booking logged with us before the 15:00 deadline puts the whole set down on your ground the next working day, so removing a satellite dish can begin that same morning without delay.

Putting it up is yours to do: we never erect towers and we never hand one over assembled. With the supplied manual and the instruction video open beside you, two people manage perfectly well, and half a day is a fair allowance before the thing is ready to work from. The order of the lifts appears in this ordered guide to raising each lift. Arrival date and departure date are both named by you at the moment of booking, not by us.

Once the repair has cured you take the tower down, stack the components where they were dropped, and we drive round to load them. Anyone working near the city can skip the lorry and collect the set in person, by appointment and without charge, from our yard on Zeeburgerpad 89 in Amsterdam, provided a van swallows every tube in one run. Otherwise the fixed amount charged for your province covers both journeys, out and back, with nothing further to settle on the day.

A reflector is a hollow face that gathers wind, and the instant the last clamp bolt is out that face becomes a free object. If it is blowing harder than a light breeze, postpone the release; leaving the dish hanging one more day beats having it pull against your arm at height. Tie a line round the arm before going anywhere near the clamps. On this job the wind, not the tool kit, decides how the day gets arranged.

Lower the panel down the upright on that line rather than carrying it under one elbow. On a ladder that is simply impossible, and even on a broad deck a reflector under your arm leaves a single free hand. Have somebody at ground level watching, keeping the landing strip empty and calling out when a passer by turns the corner. While removing a satellite dish, loose bolts and plugs drop straight down as well, so agree all of that first.

The structure itself is more than equal to the work. Every tower we hire out is manufactured to EN 1004 in load class 3, permitting two hundred kilograms on each square metre of boards, comfortably more than you, your tools and a dismantled assembly together. Stick to the basics regardless: brakes locked before anyone climbs the frame, nobody aboard while it is being rolled along the pavement, and the guard rails left exactly where the manual puts them rather than stacked in a corner.