Staining a garden house? Choose the right scaffold.

For this work the Altrex MiTower is the model to look for. That tower measures 75 cm across, is built around a single user, and stays light enough to push over a garden path or a strip of gravel single handed. That is what counts here, because a garden house has four walls and you shift along one panel at a time. Being able to move a mobile scaffold on your own easily saves an hour over a working day. The builds on the shelf appear under the MiTower in our hire fleet.

A wide 135 cm mobile scaffold buys you little on this job. Not much travels up with you when you are staining a garden house: a tin, a brush, a block of abrasive paper and a rag. That extra floor width is felt instead when you lift frame sections over a border or a low hedge, and when you swing the tower into a corner where there is barely room to manoeuvre. The room scaffold drops out too, since that model is made for indoor work and has no business on garden soil.

The measurement you actually see on the wall is the platform length of 245 cm. On a garden house of three by four metres that covers almost a whole short wall in one go, and that is precisely why a narrow tower is enough here. You move it once or twice per wall instead of four times. If you would rather finish the timber opaque than let it soak in, look at the painted finish on a garden house as well, because that asks for more rounds and more hire days.

When staining a garden house the highest point is the top shiplap board under the fascia, not the ridge of the roof. Measure that edge before you reserve; on most garden houses it sits around three metres above ground level. On top of that you do not want to be brushing with a stretched arm. You want the board at eye level so that you can see how far the stain is spreading and where the timber is still thirsty. Reckon from that board, not from the roof tile above it.

The height listed in the hire fleet is the platform height plus about 2 metres of reach. In a build of 4 to 6 metres you therefore stand on a floor of 2 to 4 metres and look straight over the fascia of a single storey garden house. Take your measurement on the ground where the castors will finally sit. If your garden falls away from the terrace towards the fence, the tower starts lower at the back and you need a little more on that side.

Choosing too tight costs you more than those few centimetres on stain work. If the top board is just out of reach you finish it with your hand above your head, the stain creeps down the handle and into your cuff, and you lose sight of your own stroke. You would also have to stop in the middle of a panel and come back to it separately. If in doubt, order the roomier build for that fascia; the difference is set out under the reach of a six metre build.

A garden house rarely stands entirely free. Along the back there is often half a metre left to the boundary, and down the side runs a path of slabs or bark chippings. Measure those strips before you order. The tower is 75 cm across the frame, but its four stabilisers splay outwards, so the footprint on the ground is wider all round than the frame suggests. If that does not fit along the back, do that wall from a lower position, or approach it from a side you can actually walk round.

The ground changes within a few paces around a garden house. Paving slabs carry the load perfectly well, a path of bark or wood chips does not, because a castor sinks in there the moment your weight arrives on the floor. Lay a solid board under each castor in places like that and check with a spirit level that the four feet stand equal. Watch the tray under the downpipe and the tree roots that have pushed slabs upward, since both put the tower out of true.

Walk that same circuit once at eye level. Branches hanging over from next door, a washing line, a climber on a trellis and garden lights on a spike all sit at the height your guardrail has to pass. Whatever you tie back beforehand you do not have to shove aside from the floor later on, and that quietly saves a few minutes at every single position. If your garden is not level, see what to do on ground that does not lie flat.

The brushing itself goes quickly; the days go on everything around it. First wiping the timber down and sweeping the dust off, then lightly sanding the greyed patches, then laying the first coat and after the waiting time the second. For a single storey garden house that adds up to three to four hire days, of which only two are really spent with a brush in your hand. Book on that overall span rather than on the number of hours you think the brushing itself will take.

Between two coats there is a wait that working harder will not shorten. Stain has to draw into the timber and it only does that if the timber is dry, so after a shower everything stops until the boards feel light again. In spring and in autumn a garden also turns clammy under the trees by late afternoon, so you put your last stroke on well before dusk rather than just in front of it, and that shortens the working day at both ends.

That argues for choosing your hire period on the generous side. The full rate applies to your first hire day alone and each further day you slide on is discounted by 95 per cent, which means a spare day held back for a wet morning barely shows in the total. Asking for a second delivery because you booked too tightly costs you a whole day instead. What the daily rental price does per model is shown at our fixed rates per build. Put your collection date behind your last staining day.

Before the first stroke, establish what is on the timber now. Drip some water onto a weathered board. If it sinks away, there is stain on it and you can work straight over the top. If it stands there in a bead, the garden house was once painted opaque and there is a film that no stain will get through. You would far rather make that finding down at ground level with your nose against the boards than later on from the floor of the tower.

After that, work panel by panel from corner to corner and follow the groove of the shiplap. A horizontal board is brushed out over its full length and you only stop at a corner, a window frame or a door post. The 245 cm floor helps with that, because you slide sideways along the board instead of doing it in pieces. Never leave a starting edge in the middle of a panel, because it prints itself the moment the timber dries and a second coat will not lift it.

What is usually underestimated is how often the tower has to shift. A four metre wall does not come off a single position, even with this floor, because you still have to reach both ends at the corners. Reckon on two standing places for each wall and take everything up in one go: the tin on a hook, the brush in your hand and a rag folded in your pocket. Every tool you leave below means one more trip down the ladder and up again.

You book online for the days you pick yourself, filling in a delivery date and a collection date as you go. Orders placed on a weekday before 15:00 go out on the following working day. On stain work you want that delivery to land at the front of a settled spell, so read the outlook for the week before you fix any date. Fetching the parts yourself by appointment at Zeeburgerpad 89 in Amsterdam costs nothing, if your van or trailer handles long components.

A complete set of loose parts arrives, counted before it left the yard: frames, deck sections, guardrails, braces and four base plates. Think ahead of the delivery day about where that stack may lie for a few days. A drive or a path of bricks works better than a lawn, because there you pick the parts up clean and no wet grass travels up with them. If the stack lies close to your first standing place, that saves half an hour of carrying through the garden and back and forth through the gate.

Assembly stays on your side of the arrangement. There is a manual in with the parts, and a video on the website takes the assembly sequence one stage at a time. We do not come and build, and we do not set a standing tower down in your garden either; at this height it takes you a couple of hours, although it goes perfectly well without help. As soon as your last coat of stain is on, we come and take the components away again on the day you filled in.

You are standing on a floor that under load class 3 within EN 1004 may take 200 kg per square metre. When staining a garden house you stay well under that, because you, a five litre tin and some abrasive paper weigh very little together. The limit only starts to matter if somebody joins you up there to pass a long board, and on this one person build that second person does not belong anyway. Leave any helpers standing on the grass.

Put the castors on the brake as soon as the tower is in position and check them again after every move, because in a garden you roll over uneven slabs and a brake can creep. Do not roll the tower a metre sideways while somebody is up there or while your tin of stain is still on the floor. If it turns windy, the brushing stops: a garden house often stands in an open spot and you catch more wind up there than you feel at ground level.

The risks on this job are small but stubborn. Stain dripping on the floor makes a slick patch that your sole finds later, so mop splashes up straight away. Hang your tin from the guardrail instead of leaving it loose on the boards. Before you start, look at where a tool would land if it fell, because next to a garden house there is often a bike rack or a crate of garden things. Read the rest at the guard rails on a mobile tower.