Scaffolding to replace fascias - advice needed

I need to replace the fascia boards on my house, and this will mean removing the lowest row of tiles, to replace some perished felt and suchlike. I have come to the conclusion that I really need a scaffold erected for this job.

I'm the kind of bloke who likes to take his time doing a job like this; not the least because, at my age, I don't have the energy or agility to polish the job off in a single day. Knowing me, it'll probably be more like a week's work.

Has anyone paid a scaffolding company to erect scaffolding around a 3-bed semi for a week rcently? How much did it cost?

I suppose another option would be to BUY some scaffolding and then sell it afterwards!

There is about ten meters of facia on each side of the house that needs replacing. Half of the job is accessible be one of those lorries with a pneumatic lift thingie, but only half of the house, so hiring one of those is not really an option.

Another option would be to bite the bullet ant pay a local builder to do the job, but I can't really afford that, unless I could find one who'd do the whole job for £500 all-in (highly unlikely in this day and age, I imagine). I've worked out that the materials required should cost approx £275.

Can anyone offer any suggestions or advice?

Many thanks,

Al

Reply to
AL_n
Loading thread data ...

"AL_n" wrote in news:Xns9F51CA47F8231zzzzzz@130.133.4.11:

PS, the £275 includes new guttering and downpipes which are also needed.

Reply to
AL_n

3.4.11:

You would be better off having a scaffolding firm erect the scaffolding, Its not the lightest material to handle and to try to erect it your self unless you=92ve had some experience and get it stable, is a no no. Usually the scaffold is on hire for 4 weeks and

10% of the cost per week after the 4 weeks. A rough estimate would be about =A3350 for 4 weeks hire. This may varies depending what area you live.
Reply to
Kipper at sea

Al,

The scaffold companies that I have dealt with in the past [1] usually erected the stuff and included a two week 'rental' in the initial charge and - then charge 'by the week' after the initial period.

Contact a few local companies, tell them exactly what you want (and for how long) and they should tailor a price to suit you - you *may* even be pleasantly surprised!

[1] On a business basis rather than as a single, 'private' individual though.

Cash

Reply to
Cash

It's *well* worth the money.

I've got a single riser at first floor window level over a porch and about 5m long. Two risers again over a porch about 11m long and another two riser section nearer 15m long. This is costing me =A3860 + VAT for erection, dismantling and 4 weeks hire. Additional weeks are =A334 + VAT.

So for some what less scaffolding the price given by someone else is certainly ball park, though my additional weeks are less than 5%.

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

So did I, although I needed to strip and replace part of the roof too. It made the job very much easier.

Later when I did another part of the house, facias and felt support trays, I got scaffolding again - no brainer.

It was £320 IIRC for one 5m long wall, and on a different occation, £420 for what amounted to two adjacent walls but with a double dog- leg. I would guess it probably works out at approx £300 for first wall and £100 for each extra joined wall. I believe London can cost more.

Price is for a month. It tends to be 5-10% extra for each week beyond that, although I was never charged extra - probably need to get to a couple of months before they start bothering. Disassembly tends to be when they can fit it in IME.

Cherry picker.

If you're going to this effort, do gutters, felt support trays, ventilation, and anything else you can whilst you're up there too. I got them to put a lift (scaffolding term for working platform) at height to paint upstairs windows too.

Reply to
Andrew Gabriel

In message , AL_n wrote

But would you still want someone to erect it safely? Factor in perhaps a weeks worth of labour.

When I had my roof replaced on a terrace house it took a 4 man team 28 man hours to erect and a three man team 18 man hours to pull down the scaffolding (this excludes any travelling time and loading the lorry at the yard) .

Reply to
Alan

I wouldn't buy scaffolding; what I did was to buy a second hand alloy tower off eBay for about £600. Will sell it on when I've finished. Very much easier to erect than a steel tower. I can just about put it up on my own (62 and creaky).

Reply to
Newshound

Purchase (and resell if you want) or hire a scaffold tower? A bit more effort than proper scaffolding, but probably cheaper.

Some scaffolding companies don't charge for the elapsed time anyway - just the erection and removal.

Reply to
John Rumm

Took me 3 weeks for nearly half the house, a month for the next quarter (not using scaffolding), and curing a leak higher up the roof too. I've teh rest to do next year, I'll get scaffolding.

A year ago it cost me £240 for 2 lift scaffolding for about a 12 metre run. This was for erection and removal, Time wasn't charged, but probably would have if the job had been months rather than weeks.

Transport is the problem there. finding a local seller and buyer.

I had quote for 1250, but from what I've seen done locally that would not have included any remedial work on the roof, and just cladding the existing.

Get scaffolding. You do a much better job much easier. Ths bit I did above a lower roof on home constructed staging was ok, but off a ladder it is possible to do a cover up job and not much more.

Reply to
<me9

When I last had scaffolding erected, too long ago for the price to mean anything, the minimum charge included one month's hire. Most of the cost is in the labour and the scaffold company owner told me that there wouldn't be enough difference between one week's hire and one month's hire to justify having different charges.

Only if you have the skill and knowledge of how to put it up safely. Inexpertly erected scaffolding is very dangerous.

Colin Bignell

Reply to
Nightjar

formatting link

Reply to
Dean Heighington

Thanks to everyone for the input. It sounds like having a regular scaffold erected will push the cost of the job way above what I can afford, even if I do all the remedial work myself. So it looks like I have two choices:

1) Clad over the rotting fascias, working from a ladder, and hope that the rot doesn't spread beyond the fascias and cause any big headaches. I only need the roof to last another 25 years. After that I'll be pushing daisies, and won't give a hoot...

OR

2) Leave things as they are for another Winter, and hope that the "stitch in time saves nine" theory doesn't apply in this case, and hope that later I'll have more money available and/or can find a helpful local who can loan me some scaffolding on the cheap. If it's only "a stitch in time saves 1.2 stitches", I'll happily shelve the problem till next Summer.

Al

Reply to
AL_n

Dean Heighington wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@news.eternal-sep tember.org:

scaffolding in the UK, so, I suppose it's still an option.

I'd have to get pretty desparate to resort to bamboo though, LOL.

Al

Reply to
AL_n

It is indeed. In a TV studio, 'staff' put up all the scenery. But if scaffolding is required as well, an outside contractor does it. Could be to do with insurance, in this case.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

unless you over-reach and fall off the ladder... get scaffold!

[g]
Reply to
george [dicegeorge]

You don't mention buying a tower. I bought a cheap (£150) set about 15 years ago and still make use of it. I cannot find any similar sets using Google but a more modern version is here:

formatting link
looks bulkier than mine. With additional searching or checking local newspaper sales ad's I believe you can buy one at a lot less than this price.

I can dis-assemble my tower and store along one side of the garage.

km

Reply to
km

Another point to remember - I bought wooden planking from a reclaim/cheapo site nearby and cut the lengths to size for working my way up the tower from inside the frame, using a couple of planks to make the top platform. Factor those purchases in.

km

Reply to
km

Hire scaffolding, towers wobble and decent outriggers are very important for stability, you may need to go back & forth which is very tedious with a tower. The addons with towers soon add up and decent BOSS cost a lot.

If you are staying in the house, particularly for retirement... Expect to do more than the bottom row of tiles to get a good underlap of felt. The eaves protectors are a good idea.

Incidentally if you find you need roof work doing like a slipped tile/ slate, or lead, or chimney pot, or chimney pot rain cover, you can always ask a roofer to call and do that since scaffolding is already in place. You may want to check ridge tiles and such like, the past two winters were not charitable to ridge tile pointing at all.

Reply to
js.b1

Overcome by simply drilling holes in wall to take hooks for rope fixing. Completely stable.

Moving was simple for me as I placed sheets of laminate under each foot and slid the tower along to next position so no need to dismantle for each move. Accept that this may not be applicable if terrain is uneven. Having said that I moved over uneven garden as well as driveway and just packed wood or more laminate to keep level.

km

Reply to
km

HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.