Removing birds' nests? Choose the right scaffold.

For clearing nests out from under a roof edge you take the RS52, the broad version at 135 cm. That is not because the job needs a mountain of tools, but because you stand in one place for a long stretch and a good deal has to sit around you there: a sealable bag, a bucket, a lamp, a mirror on a handle and your protective kit. On a slim deck all of that is in the way the moment you turn round. Both widths appear together under the mobile scaffolds you can book online.

You are also rarely up there alone on this job. One person draws the nesting material out of the cavity while the other holds the bag open and passes tools across. With more than a metre between the guard rails, the two of you get past each other without anyone shoving a full sack. The weight is modest, the volume is not: an old starling nest behind a gutter bracket comes out in dozens of handfuls and you do not want those loose across the boards.

Where it is a single cavity in the wall and you are working alone, the narrow version will do, and it passes a side gate to the back of the house far more easily. As soon as several metres of roof edge have to be walked, or two of you are removing birds' nests together, the wide model from the fleet is the better answer. Weights, sizes and what to watch for are gathered in the reference on tower sizes and weights.

Removing birds' nests takes you to the highest point a bird can get to: under the bottom row of tiles, behind a gutter bracket, in an open perpend just below the roof edge or in the cavity at an overhang. On a three storey house, or one with a deep roof, you are quickly looking at somewhere between eight and twelve metres. Measure to the cavity you have to see into, not to the ridge, because you have no business up there for this work.

Then count back downwards. Take roughly 2 metres off the point you need to reach, because that is what your arms still bridge from the boards; what remains is the platform height you hire. If the cavity sits at ten metres, you stand at eight. Start measuring on the ground where the castors will go, so in the garden or on the footway, and not on your back door threshold, which nearly always sits a step higher.

Hiring short is more of a nuisance here than it would be for painting, because you have to be able to look inside. Stand half a metre below the right height and all you see is the bottom edge of the nest, groping about in the dark with a pair of tongs. Remains stay behind, the smell lingers, and by next spring there is simply another nest in the same hole. What three storeys means in metres is worked out under work at second floor level.

Nest sites tend to be exactly where the ground is least helpful: over an extension, behind a conservatory, between the shed and the boundary, or hard against the street. Work out first where the foot of the build can stand, and only after that where you begin. A wide tower asks for more space underneath than its own width, because the stabilisers sit at an angle out of the base and all four want to bear on the same firm ground, even where the garden falls away.

The surface has to be level and to stay level. A terrace of sunken slabs, a border of bark chippings or a strip of grass beside the shed gives way once two of you are aloft with bags on the boards as well. A step between a raised terrace and the garden path is the second stumbling block, and mind what stands hard against the wall: a water butt, an outward opening shed door, a low hedge or a bolted down cycle rack.

Think about what comes down from under you too. Clearing a nest sends material downwards, sometimes with a roof tile or a length of comb filler along with it, so fence off the strip beneath the build and tell the neighbours when you will be at it. Where the hired tower stands partly on the footway, leave enough width for a pram to pass. Holding a build steady is covered in the guidance on stabilisers and anchor points.

Before you fix a date, find out whether you are permitted to work at this nest site at all. Wild birds are protected in the Netherlands, a nest in use is left alone, and with certain species the nest site counts as protected the whole year round even when nothing is in it at that moment. This is not legal advice: ask your municipality, or have an ecologist come and judge on the spot what is and is not possible in your case.

Once that is clear, the work itself is manageable. Emptying and cleaning one cavity takes a couple of hours. Where a run of nests sits under the tiles, you walk the whole roof edge and spend two to three hire days on shifting, inspecting and clearing up. Add the morning it takes to build the tower, then put another day behind that to check what you skipped from the earliest positions, because something always is missed there.

That programme contains waits that are not yours to control. An answer from the council or from an ecologist rarely arrives the same afternoon, and the breeding season decides which months are open to you at all. So stay on the generous side with the number of days you hire: an extra day weighs lightly, because the full figure is charged over your first twenty four hours and everything after that is billed with 95 per cent taken off. The checklist for booking a tower helps you prepare.

One position covers roughly two metres of roof edge, and that is precisely what makes removing birds' nests a job of repositioning: the cavities sit scattered and each one wants examining from close up. Carry everything up in a single trip, because going down and back costs more time than the clearing does. On the list are a mirror on a handle, a decent lamp, long tongs, sealable bags, a hand brush and a roll of tape for closing a full bag while you are still aloft.

Hold that mirror in the opening and shine a light in before you put anything into it. You want to know how deep the hole runs, whether a second nest lies behind the first and whether there is still life in there. Do not flush the cavity out with a hose. Water drives the material deeper into the cavity wall, wets the timber underneath and spreads the very thing you came to remove across a much larger part of the structure.

What comes out is more than moss and twigs. An old nest holds mites looking for a fresh host the moment you lift it, and the dried droppings turn to dust as soon as you stir them. So work in gloves and a dust mask, and knot each bag shut up on the boards. Do not beat your clothing out while you are still on the deck, and lower full bags on a line rather than standing them loose.

No assembled tower arrives at your gate. What comes is a counted parcel of loose parts that you turn into a build on site. Orders can be placed until 15:00 on a working day, and whatever is confirmed in time is ready the next working day after that. Beyond that, the arrival date and the day the parts leave you again are both your own decision. When removing birds' nests that freedom is useful, because your starting day hangs on an answer you may not have in hand yet.

Point out beforehand where the components may lie. They end up on the pavement, the drive or the path and take up roughly the room of a large car. Do not have them put down on the very square metres where the hired tower itself has to stand, or you will carry everything twice. If your nest site is round the back, arrange for the unloading as close to the side gate as possible, which saves tens of metres of carrying.

Afterwards we drive out again and take the whole set back; you leave it dismantled and complete in the same spot. Let the weather set your end date, because on a wet, blowy day you are not climbing to ten metres with a sack of dusty nesting material. Moving a day is wiser than pressing on, and it is arranged simply by giving us your new collection date before the van is already on the road.

The boards you stand on take 200 kg for every square metre, which is the loading that class 3 within EN 1004 provides. On this job you come nowhere near it: you go up with empty bags and come down with full ones. The danger lies elsewhere. Your head and arms end up deep inside a cavity, and while you are pulling at something in there your centre of gravity drifts over the guard rail without your registering it.

Lock the castors before you start to climb and leave them locked until you are back down. Moving a build with anyone aboard is never allowed, not even to reach the next nest a metre along; up top you feel that shift as a jolt and at ten metres you have no free hand to grab with. If the wind picks up the work stops, because at this height there is always more of it than at ground level by the wall.

The hazards that belong to this job are dust, falling lumps and slippery footing. Droppings on a pitched tile or on your deck board turn greasy as soon as they get wet, so sweep as you go and place your feet deliberately. Fence the strip below off, because a handful of nesting material with a lump of mortar in it lands hard. Never work over a path that people use without someone keeping an eye on it from below, and never over the street without a barrier.