Cleaning solar panels? Choose the right scaffold.

On washing work there is always something standing on your floor: a bucket of lukewarm water, a second bucket to rinse with, a brush on a pole and a cloth. That is exactly why you hire the wide Altrex RS52 here, with its 135 cm floor. At that size a full bucket stands out of the way when you step sideways. On a narrow deck the bucket ends up on the ground and you climb down for every rinse, which on a roof of twenty panels is a morning wasted.

Anyone who has to reach the back garden along a narrow path ends up with the RS51 of 75 cm; it fits through anything but leaves you less room, and on wet work you feel that at once. Measure the tightest point of that passage first, because the frames go through by hand. The MiTower does not reach a pitched roof on two storeys, and a room scaffold is for indoor work. Which versions stand ready is listed among the towers in our hire fleet.

For cleaning solar panels you hire a mobile scaffold rather than lean a ladder against the gutter, and the reason is your hands. On a deck both of them are free and you move sideways without climbing down. With a brush on a pole you also push against the glass, and that pushing force is not something you want to apply from a ladder. On castors you shift a little way after every few panels, which on a roof eight metres wide works out at three or four positions across the slope.

The dirt you really want gone sits at the top, because that is where water stands longest on the bottom edge of each panel. Your measuring point is therefore the highest row and not the gutter. A working height consists of the height of your platform with about 2 metres of reach above it, and while washing you use part of that reach with the pole of your brush. On a two storey house the figure works out between 8 and 12 metres, and a steep pitch pushes it towards the upper end.

Down below you start measuring at the castors. If the tower stands on a patio one step higher than the lawn, that shows up in your build, and the other way round just as much. If in doubt, take the higher position, because a wash in which you skip the top row is not really a wash and gives you the same view again within a month. Hiring one section more beats hiring the whole set twice. What belongs to which figure is on the page for eleven metres of working height.

If your build does not get high enough, something happens that you only see afterwards. You get the bottom two rows gleaming and leave the top row as it was, so that at the first shower dirty water runs across the panels you cleaned. And you can start again. If your roof slope sits at second floor level, take a build above the one you thought you needed while measuring. Those few extra parts weigh nothing against a second round of cleaning solar panels.

On this job water runs down the whole time, and that decides where the tower goes. On slabs or block paving it drains away, on a timber deck it turns slippery and on grass you make a mud bath under your castors within an hour. So put the scaffold on hard standing and lay a couple of boards down if you must. Allow for the hosepipe too: it has to reach up without running under a castor or wrapping round a brace, and a hose under a wheel stops a move dead.

Around the foot the four stabilisers need clear ground, and on a washing round a bucket station and a tap connection come on top of that. Look at where the rinse water ends up as well: over the boundary into the neighbours' garden is unhelpful, and on a newly laid patio dirty water leaves streaks. Put an old sheet or a bucket under the spot where most of it comes down. Warn the neighbours if their car is parked alongside, because grit off a roof marks paintwork.

You move with dry castors on dry ground, so sweep the water ahead of you before you shift along. A tower sliding across a wet slab is exactly the surprise you do not want. Walk the run along the elevation beforehand looking for moss between the slabs, because that is every bit as slippery as it is on the roof. Note the drain covers and soft joints on that run as well. For a sloping patio or sunken slabs, the piece on stabilising and anchoring helps you on.

A roof slope with twelve to twenty panels is clean in a day, the build included. The brushing itself takes a couple of hours; the rest of the day goes on building, fetching water, moving along and rinsing the bottom row afterwards. If there is a lot of moss along the edges, that brushing doubles, because moss only lets go after soaking and a second pass. Allow a day and a half in that case, and expect to refill and rinse your buckets halfway through.

The weather decides more here than on other jobs. On a sunny afternoon the rinse water dries before you have pulled it off, and you are left with streaks and limescale marks on the glass. So you want a cloudy day or the early morning, and that cannot always be planned on the day itself. Take a period of two or three days so that you can pick the right half day without the tower having to leave again. The days you add behind the first one hardly move the total.

A generous reservation costs little, while too tight a one forces you to start at the wrong moment. So set your collection date a day wider than you need on paper, and hand the set back early if it goes well. How to judge that period is described under the guidance on choosing your hire days. Combine the wash with a round along the clamps and that end date moves out by another day, which is still one hire and one journey.

Each position covers 245 cm of platform length, good for roughly two panels side by side. Begin at the top row and work downwards, because everything you loosen rinses over the rows below and has to come off there again. Do that per column rather than per row, and then you only move the tower once per column. Rinse each column before you shift, or the loosened dirt dries back on and you face a second pass you would rather avoid. Count the columns beforehand and you know how many moves the day holds.

Three things matter about the water itself. Tap water contains lime, and that lime stays behind as white marks as soon as the glass dries in the sun; rinsing off and pulling dry with a squeegee prevents it. Cold water on a panel that has lain in the sun all morning gives the glass a shock, so start early or wait for cloud. And leave the pressure washer alone: that force drives moisture past the edge seal into the panel, and the recoil is the last thing you want up on a deck.

Use a soft brush on a pole and no scouring pad, and work in long strokes in the direction the water drains. Moss along the bottom edge you first soak for a quarter of an hour with lukewarm water and then brush away without pulling at the frame. What people misjudge is the number of buckets a roof takes: with twenty panels you easily walk up and down ten times without a hose. Combine it happily with a check along the clamps and rails.

You get the tower delivered in loose parts, neatly counted on the note: uprights, platforms, guardrails, braces and a set of stabilisers. Find a dry spot for those parts, because they lie there for a few days and you do not want to put them down in the puddle you make yourself while rinsing the roof. Under a canopy or against the shed is better than in the middle of the patio, where the water heads and sometimes stands for hours after a rinse.

Anything ordered before 15:00 on a working day is dropped off the working day after. The day it appears in front of the house and the day it leaves are both yours to set. On washing work that is welcome, because you would rather line the delivery day up with a forecast that has cloud in it than with a week of hard blue sky. Moving a day costs you nothing as long as you let us know in time, and for cleaning solar panels that freedom is worth more than a fixed date.

Putting it up you do under your own steam, with the manual beside you and the video as a reminder; reckon on a couple of hours with two people. Afterwards you take the tower apart again and we load it on your collection day. Dry the parts off before you stack them, because wet aluminium and a closed load space are not a happy pair. What bringing and fetching costs is fixed per province and listed under the charge for the run, VAT included.

The floor you stand on takes 200 kg per square metre, the level that load class 3 of EN 1004 requires for these towers. With two buckets of water and a second person you do not come close, so that is not your worry. What does count is that the same floor gets wet. An aluminium platform with a film of water and soap on it is slippery, so slide your feet instead of stepping and wipe it dry between times.

The ordinary rules apply with a bucket in your hand as well: brakes on as soon as you climb up, nobody on the tower while it moves, and in strong wind you stay down. On wet work there is one more: hang nothing on the guardrail that can fall. A bucket on a hook looks handy until it catches your knee as you climb on and empties itself. Fold the stabilisers out after every move and check all four find dry support before the next column.

Water and a live installation ask for attention. Never spray directly onto the junction boxes at the back or onto the penetration in the roof, and do not work on the cabling in wet gloves. Keep the space under the platform clear as well, because a brush on a pole that slides off a wet deck comes down in an arc. Fence that strip off with a bucket or a bin if a path runs under it. The remaining rules you will find under working at height with a mobile scaffold.