Installing solar panels? Choose the right scaffold.

A standard panel measures roughly 175 by 115 centimetres and weighs around twenty kilos. That thing has to be able to rest somewhere before it disappears over the roof edge, and for that you hire the Altrex RS52 with its deck width of 135 cm. On that size a panel stands at an angle while somebody is still standing next to it. On a narrower floor you have to take the panel from below to the tiles in one movement, and that seldom happens without knocking something.

The narrow RS51 of 75 cm and the one person MiTower drop out here, not because they come up short in height but because there is no space for a second pair of hands. When installing solar panels you are nearly always on the tower with two people: one taking the panel from below and one pushing it on. That only works if you can pass each other. Among the mobile scaffolds we hire out the wide version is the standard answer for this work.

Do measure the route to the spot where the tower will stand. A wide 135 cm scaffold does not fit through every gate, and on this job you want it in the garden where the pallet of panels sits as well. If it will not pass, you give up working room and hire the narrow version instead, which means handing panels up one by one on their edge. Allow more time per row then, as set out in the notes on doorways and tower widths.

For installing solar panels you choose your height differently from other roof work. You do not have to reach the ridge, because the fitter on the roof takes the panel over as soon as it crosses the gutter. Reckon the working height as your deck height with a further 2 metres of reach, and here you hardly use that reach at all. What counts is that the deck itself comes out just below the roof edge, and not a lift above it.

So you measure from the point under the castors to the underside of the gutter. If your garden lies lower than the pavement in front, that difference simply belongs in the sum. If an extension or a conservatory is in the way, the tower has to clear it and you measure where it really stands. For a two storey house that lands you on a build somewhere between 6.2 and 9.2 metres, and an eight metre build sits in the middle of that range.

Hiring too low is worse here than hiring too high. If the deck stops half a metre under the gutter you push every panel up at an angle instead of sliding it through level, and you feel that in your shoulders by panel five. Come out too high and you reach down over the roof edge, which works just as badly and treats your back no better. If you fall between two builds, check your gutter height for a first floor roof and choose around it.

On this job the standing place follows from the pallet and not from the roof slope. Wherever the panels are dropped, usually on the drive or along the street, you have to be able to carry them across with two people without steps or tight corners. So put the tower as close to that stack as you can, on flat ground that carries the castors. Block paving, concrete and firm gravel are good; a newly laid lawn sinks as soon as you walk it a few times.

Around the foot the four stabilisers have to come out, and on top of that you want a clear walking strip along which the pair of you carry the panels. That is more space than people estimate beforehand. So move the garden furniture, the barbecue, the planters and the bikes off the whole route, not just next to the tower. Trip with a panel in your hands and glass breaks. For a sloping patio the guidance on stabilising and anchoring takes you further.

Choose the first position at the end where your row begins, so usually in a corner of the roof slope. From there you shift in the same direction each time, so that the supply line from the pallet grows steadily shorter or steadily longer and never zigzags across the garden. Leave a little play between the guardrail and the gutter, or the top tube scrapes the gutter brackets when you move. And look where the downpipe sits, because no stabiliser fits around it.

The lifting itself goes faster than people expect: with two on the tower and one on the roof a panel is in place within a few minutes. Twelve to eighteen panels come to half a day of work. What fills the days is everything around it: the build, unpacking and checking the panels, dragging the pallet about and clearing up the polystyrene that blows everywhere if you do not bag it at once. Nobody counts that clearing up until it is happening.

So reckon on the tower standing for two to three days. The waiting is in there too: the installer who connects the cabling and the inverter works to his own diary, and in rain you do not open a pallet of panels. Each move along the elevation eats a quarter of an hour, stabilisers out and in included. On a slope that gets covered across its full width you end up at three or four positions, and a spare day is then no luxury.

Plan your hire period around the delivery date of the panels and not around your own days off. If the load comes a day late, the tower stands built and waiting for work. The other way round is no better: panels lying on the drive for days are not insured against everything. Because you name the arrival day and the pick-up day yourself, you can put the tower exactly around that shipment. More on period length sits in the comparison of daily and weekly hire.

With 245 cm of platform length you stand in front of roughly two panel widths of elevation per position. That is just enough to work a whole column from top to bottom without moving. Lay the panel flat on the deck first with the long edge towards the wall, then take it with two people by the short edges and slide it over the roof edge. The fitter on the roof pulls the last stretch. Nobody has to hold the weight above their head.

The order of the rows decides how often you move. Start with the bottom row across the full width and work upwards, because a panel that is already lying there cannot be passed. Anyone who decides halfway through that the top row should be different carries panels back down again. Agree with the fitter before you start which row fills first and which way you are going, and hold to that until the slope is closed. One agreed direction beats two good intentions.

What else goes up with you is limited: gloves with grip, a pair of suction cups if you have them and a rope to secure a panel. All the fixing tools are already up there, because the rails and clamps of the mounting system belong to a different stage from the supply run. What people misjudge most is how often they climb the ladder; with eighteen panels that is easily thirty times, and your legs keep the score. Wear boots you can climb in all day.

The scaffold arrives in parts that you stack yourself: uprights, platforms, guardrails, braces and a set of braked castors, counted down to the last bolt. Place the order on a weekday and keep it under 15:00; the van comes the next working day. Pick a spot for that stack which does not coincide with the place the pallet of panels will land; those two fight over the same square metres on a drive. A strip along the fence usually works best.

The build is on your account, with the manual and the instruction video taking you through it step by step. At this height two people are busy for something under three hours, so have the delivery arrive the day before you start. You set the arrival date and the departure date when you reserve, which is handy here because the panels and the installer each have their own date and rarely land together. The order of parts sits in the step by step assembly guide.

At the end you take the tower down yourself and lay all the parts in one tidy stack; we come and take them off your hands on the day agreed. Do not dismantle until the last panel is fixed, because a half covered roof often asks for one more position. What bringing and fetching cost together depends on your province, and you will find it at the charges per province. We do not drive to the Wadden Islands or across the border, so bear that in mind for a holiday home.

Two people and a panel on one platform is no problem: the deck will hold 200 kg on every square metre, which in the terms of EN 1004 is class 3. Even so it is wise not to have more than one panel up there at a time. Not for the weight, but because with two panels side by side there is nowhere left to put your feet. So bring them up one at a time and leave the rest below on the pallet where they came from.

Before anybody sets foot on the ladder all the castors are braked, and nobody stands on the tower while it moves. That last point matters especially during the handover, because the temptation to shuffle half a metre along with a panel in your hands is strong. If it blows harder than a stiff breeze, the handover stops: a panel works like a sail the moment you hold it upright. Fold the stabilisers out again after every move. A braked castor is not the same as a stabilised base.

Two things go wrong most often while installing solar panels. The first is glass: a panel that taps a guardrail does not always break at once, but it picks up hairline cracks that only show months later in the output. The second is the zone under the tower, where nobody belongs while anything is crossing the roof edge. Stand a barrow across it as a marker. The basic rules are on the page about working at height. Tell whoever is in the garden where that zone runs.