Installing sun shading? Choose the right scaffold.

Installing sun shading is rarely one small job at one window. Usually several openings are involved on different faces of the house, and then you work the wall in rounds. For that you take the RS51, the narrow Altrex version at 75 centimetres, because a pair of you rolls it on to the next window inside a few minutes. Which versions are standing ready, and which build stages go with them, is shown among the mobile scaffolds you can hire. Count your openings before you choose a stage.

Anyone wanting shade above a single window is better served by the page on a folding arm unit above one opening. That is about one cassette and one position, with the projection and the first run of the fabric as the main event. This page covers the broader job: choosing by orientation, allowing for the sort of wall you drill into, and finishing a complete side of the house in two rounds. That difference also decides how many days you hire and how often the tower is moved.

On the deck itself you need very little room. A drill, a tub of plugs, a level and the hardware sit comfortably beside you on a floor 245 centimetres long. The units only go up in the second round, and then a second person is up there with you for a while. What does count is the narrow way through to the back of the house, because a wide deck will not thread through there without the gate coming off its hinges first. Measure that gap early.

With shading the highest point sits above the topmost opening in the run. For windows on the ground floor and the first floor that works out at 6 to 8 metres of working height. That figure is the deck height you stand on with some 2 metres of reach added above it. Above the head of each frame there also has to be room for the hardware, and that belongs in your measurement. A roof with a dormer in it pushes the topmost fixing higher again, so installing sun shading there wants a taller build.

Measure each face separately. The back of a house often has an extension that starts the upper window lower, while the front carries an extra row of openings up in the roof. Take the highest point of the whole side as your figure, because you hire one build of the tower for all the rounds together. At the overview of working heights you can see how those figures relate to the number of stages. Measure at a quiet moment, not on delivery day with the parts already on the ground.

If in doubt, reserve the taller build. A set-up can always be left lower with some decks unused, but building higher than you hired is not possible. On this job that bites quickly, since the top bracket always sits above the head of the glass you are judging it by from the ground. For an elevation with openings at second floor level you reckon on considerably more, and the height you state is what your rental price is based on when you book the tower.

Because you are doing several openings, the standing place is not one spot but a series of them. Walk the wall before the tower arrives and check at each window whether the four stabilisers can actually be set out there. A raised terrace, a shed against the brickwork or a sunken light well under the kitchen window can make a spot unusable. Then you shift the set-up half a metre and work that window from the side. Note per opening whether the ground will do, because installing sun shading means standing at each one.

The surface changes along one elevation more often than you expect. In front of the door there is paving, beside it a border starts, and round the corner sits grass that will not carry after a wet week. Lay a thick board under the feet on soft patches and check at every position afresh that the deck is level. How to handle differences in height is covered at working on ground that will not lie flat, spindles included. A tower out of plumb works against you at the next window too.

Think ahead about the order you take the wall in. Start at the opening furthest from the gate and work back towards the pile of parts, and you avoid carrying tools the length of the garden at the end of the day. Keep the route clear of furniture and bikes, since you push the tower through in one piece to the next position rather than breaking it down each time. Over six windows that habit saves a quarter of an hour apiece in build time alone.

Hiring a tower for shading along a whole elevation comes to three days in practice. That is because you work in two rounds: first a measuring and drilling round in which you mark the positions per window, check the substrate and fix the brackets, then a hanging round in which the units go in and are adjusted. In between there is often a day of waiting on materials or on a second pair of hands. Count that day into the period you book, because an idle tower still counts as a day of hire.

Splitting the work is not a detour but a saving. In the first round you discover which faces disappoint and which plugs you have to go out and buy, and you want to know that before a unit is hanging on the hooks. Allow roughly an hour per window for drilling and another hour for hanging. Six openings therefore fill two full working days, plus the morning in which the tower goes up. Eight of them add half a day again, and that is before any wiring is done.

The tariff keeps that extra day small. You pay the first day at the whole rate and from then on every day of hire carries 95 per cent off, so a third or fourth day disappears next to the first. Installing sun shading is exactly the kind of work where that helps, because one difficult window can swallow an afternoon. Put your end date well past the last hanging round rather than tight against it, and keep the margin for the difficult wall.

Begin with the choice per orientation. On the south side the sun stands high and a unit that reaches well outwards does the work; on the west it comes in low and you want something that drops vertically down the glass. The east face mainly needs covering for the morning hours, and a north wall usually needs nothing at all. Go through that face by face, because the wrong choice hangs on your house for years and nobody rehangs a whole elevation lightly. Installing sun shading badly is expensive to undo.

Then look at what you are drilling into, and that differs by wall type. In solid masonry an ordinary plug grips perfectly well, but in a cavity wall with a thin outer skin you have to reach the inner leaf or set a chemical anchor. With external insulation you need spacers that carry the load through to the structure. On timber cladding you screw into the battens or the backing behind the boards, never into the boarding itself. Ask your supplier which anchor is specified for the units you have ordered.

In the hanging round the weight of the unit joins in. From a deck 245 centimetres long you take in one opening and can lower the unit into its brackets without stretching. Do that with two people and check at every window that it hangs level and runs smoothly before you move the tower on. Coming back later for one window means the whole build starts again from the ground, and that costs you a hire day you had never planned for.

The scaffold arrives as a counted set of loose parts, dropped where you point. Pick a corner you pass in both rounds, beside the gate or on the drive, so that you are not walking round a stack of tubes every time you move. Get the order in on a working day before the clock strikes 15:00 and the set is delivered on the next working day. That way the following morning starts with building rather than with waiting for a van at the kerb.

Putting it together is your own work, and the printed instructions come with it; a film on the site runs through the order of decks, guard rails and braces. At this height two of you spend about half a morning on it. Have the delivery made the day before your drilling round begins and you lose no hire day to waiting. Installing sun shading then begins on a full morning. What bringing and fetching costs is shown at the transport costs per province.

After the last hanging round we come and take the set away again, on the day you passed to us. Break the tower down and gather the parts in one place rather than leaving them spread across three gardens because you moved along the wall. Count the braces and deck boards while you dismantle. Then you know for certain that nothing is still standing behind the hedge to be found weeks later, when the van is long gone.

Up to 200 kg on a single square metre is what this deck takes, which is what EN 1004 allows in load class 3. On shading work you stay well under that in the drilling round, but in the hanging round two people are up there with a unit between them. Lay that unit flat rather than standing it against the guard rail. More on what the class means is set out at the note on this scaffold standard, so you know what two of you may safely take up the ladder together.

As soon as anybody steps onto the tower the castors are braked. Moving to the next window happens only once the deck is empty and nobody is aboard, so tools do not stay up there simply because it is two metres along. In strong wind you stop hanging, since a loose unit turns every way at once the moment you lift it. Carry on with the drilling round instead and hang the next day. Still mornings are the best hours for this part of the work.

Drilling carries the greatest risk on this job. You are working with a machine above shoulder height and with dust coming straight into your face, so glasses and hearing protection are no luxury. Keep the strip beneath you clear, especially when you go into a cavity and lumps of brick come down. Warn the neighbours if you are standing right on the boundary line, and sweep grit off the deck before you move on to the next window. The remaining requirements are at the rules for working at height.