Cleaning a patio canopy? Choose the right scaffold.

Altrex builds the MiTower as a tower for a single user, three quarters of a metre across, with 4 to 6 metres of working height as the build you order. On this job that slim measurement is exactly what you are after, because a patio rarely offers an empty strip: pots, a lounge seat, a barbecue and usually the canopy posts themselves are all in the way. Between all of that you hire a mobile scaffold in the narrowest width there is, at the MiTower built for one user.

That this model is rated for one person suits the character of the work, because cleaning a patio canopy is single handed work throughout. You go up with a bucket, a soft brush and a telescopic pole, not with a mate and a chest of tools. Light weight counts for more here than a large deck area, since you shift along the whole front of the roof and you do that alone. The platform length of 245 cm gives you just enough floor to cover a decent run of panels from every stand.

A wider tower buys you very little on a patio. Extra reach is not part of the deal, because how far you get across the panels depends on the length of your pole and not on the floor you stand on. Between garden furniture a broad base actively works against you, and the longer parts still have to come through the gate. If the roof gutter of the house is next on your list, the same tower serves for it while the garden stays level enough.

What you have to reach is not the gutter but the top edge of the panels, where the canopy meets the wall or a mounting profile. On an ordinary extension that sits around three metres up, a little higher if the roof has a steep fall. You do not want to be looking at it from eye level but down onto it at an angle, or the growth only announces itself when the sun catches it wrongly. So reckon from the patio slabs to half a metre above that abutment.

A build of 4 to 6 metres puts you right at nearly every patio canopy. Your deck then ends up somewhere between two and four metres, because the number you book on is that deck height with a further two metres of reach counted on top. The gap between platform height and working height is the figure to keep your eye on while ordering. Which build belongs to that reach is written up at a six metre working height.

Take a stand that is too low and you sweep across the deck at eye level, pushing dirt ahead of you instead of lifting it off. You also start to hang, leaning over the guardrail towards a spot that lies just too far away, and that is precisely the movement you never want to make on a tower. Hiring one stand more takes the temptation away and costs proportionally almost nothing. Measure once too often before you settle the build.

The set-up goes along the open side of the canopy, so usually on the garden side of the patio. Paving there often falls away to shed rainwater, and now and then it simply ends in grass or a border. Put the castors on levelling plates or a couple of loose slabs the moment one starts to sink, and look the whole thing over again after a night of heavy rain. A patio with a settled corner is a harder starting point for a tower than a drive is.

Around the foot you need the swing of the stabilisers, and that is just where the canopy posts stand in your way. Measure the distance between two posts before the scaffold is delivered, because that figure decides how often you move along and whether you have to set up at an angle anywhere. Shift the garden furniture, the planters and the barbecue aside beforehand as well. Whatever stays where it is will be standing in wet dirt by the end of the day.

Think about what comes down, too. Leaves, moss and green water drop past the edge of the panels onto the patio where your tower stands. Choose a position that stops you walking through your own mess all day, and hose the slabs under you between stands. Take the doormat away from the garden doors, since it catches everything that runs off the gutter while cleaning a patio canopy. If the garden falls sharply, look at a tower on uneven ground before you build.

For a canopy four to seven metres wide you are finished in a day when it goes well. You start at the gutter, work the panels through afterwards and rinse everything down once more at the end. Cleaning a patio canopy is a short job with a long tail. Booking two hire days is still the wiser move, because this job disappoints more often than it flatters: growth that has settled into the texture of the panels needs soaking, and a roof untouched for years wants a second round with a soft brush.

Reckon on waiting you do not control either. In frost and in a hard wind the washing simply stops, and in full sun your product dries on the panels before it has done anything at all. Early morning or a grey day works best. Keep the tower a day longer and you can wait for such a moment rather than pressing on at the wrong hour, which on a plastic roof usually means doing the same run twice.

That waiting costs you next to nothing. Almost the whole of what you pay sits in the opening twenty four hour period, since each subsequent date is reduced by 95 per cent, which brings three days close to the price of one. Reserve too short and you are watching a half washed canopy while the van pulls up. What others allow for a job of this type is at a breakdown of typical hire lengths.

Always begin at the canopy gutter. It is worked into the front beam and fills with leaf, needles and grit, and while a plug is sitting there you rinse the dirt off the panels straight back onto the deck. Scoop it out by hand into a bucket standing with you on the platform, then check that the outlet runs freely, and only then start on the panels. That order saves you half a day of doing things twice, and it leaves the outlet running while you work above it.

The panels themselves get plenty of water, a soft brush and, if you must, a product suitable for plastics. What you do not bring out here is a pressure washer: the jet leaves matt scratches in the surface, forces water under the rubbers of the glazing beads and can push the sealed joints at the wall abutment loose. Work from the top edge down towards the gutter, so the dirt travels with the fall instead of settling in the joints. Cleaning a patio canopy with a soft brush is slower and leaves the surface intact.

Per set-up you cover roughly the length of your platform plus whatever a stretched pole picks up sideways. On a deck five metres wide that means two or three stands, and from each stand a telescopic pole usually reaches a metre and a half onto the roof. Whatever lies beyond that you take from the other side or from the end of the canopy. Never step onto the panels to catch that last strip; cleaning a patio canopy is done from beside the roof and from nowhere else.

The tower turns up as a loose set, counted item by item before it is loaded into the van. Pick a corner for that stack in advance, and remember the patio is about to turn wet: the grass, the drive or a strip beside the shed suits better. If the garden is reached round the back, measure the gate before you order, since cleaning a patio canopy begins with getting the parts there. Order under the 15:00 mark on a weekday and the parts land on your paving the working day after.

While reserving you enter the arrival day and the day everything is collected, and for washing work you match those to the forecast. A cloudy, windless spell is when you want to be up there, and a hire period that spans a few days lets you pick your morning. Building it is down to you: the manual travels with the set and the instruction film goes out into the garden on your phone. The order of the components is explained at the step by step assembly guide.

Once the deck is clean the tower comes apart again and you stack everything where the van can reach it; collecting it on the agreed day is our side of the arrangement. Rinse the castors and the bottom tubes before you lay them out, because after this job there is guaranteed to be mud and green wash on them. Tally the parts while you dismantle, so no brace is left behind in the shrubs and the return goes through without a query.

The deck under you is a class 3 platform, and EN 1004 fixes that at 200 kg for every square metre. For washing work that is generously sized, since you, a bucket of suds and a brush stay well below it. Do bear in mind that water is heavy, and set a filled bucket low on the platform rather than balanced on the guardrail. Where those limits sit exactly is at the load and weight figures for a tower.

Lock the castors the moment you step on and release them only when nobody is aloft and the platform is bare. Never move the tower with your bucket still up there, because it slides off the edge at the first ridge in the paving. When the wind gets strong enough to make the canopy panels rattle, stop this work altogether: you then have a wet floor underfoot and a pole tugging at your arm at the same time.

The real hazard on this job is the temptation to step onto the deck for a second. Plastic and glass panels are made to carry rain, leaves and snow, not a grown adult, and they give no warning at all before they fail. Stay inside the guardrails and take what you cannot reach from the next stand. Keep the platform swept as well, because the moss and leaf you scoop down make the floor treacherous.