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Scaffolding and access: why it is in the price
Access is the single line most often missing from a cheap quote, and the one most likely to turn a fixed price into a moving one.
What needs a scaffold
Any full or partial re-roof. Any work on a chimney stack. Anything where somebody will be on the roof slope for more than a few minutes, or where materials have to come up and waste has to come down.
It is not caution for its own sake. Falls from height remain the commonest cause of serious injury in this trade, and a roofer working off a ladder on a stack is making a decision about your job and their family at the same time.
What a ladder or a tower can honestly do
A ladder is for inspection, for gutter work on a low eaves, and for getting onto a scaffold. A mobile tower covers a short section of eaves or a low flat roof safely. Neither is a platform for stripping a slope or rebuilding a stack, whatever anyone tells you.
If a quote is much cheaper than the others, the first question is what access it assumes.
What affects what the scaffold costs
How much of the building it has to reach, whether it needs to go over a conservatory or a flat roof, whether a pavement licence or a road closure is involved, and how long it stands. Hire is priced by period, so a job that runs long on weather costs more in scaffold than in labour.
Terraced streets with no rear access are the expensive case, because everything goes through the house or over the roof. Say so at the enquiry and the quote will be right first time.
Questions to ask about it
Is the scaffold in the quoted figure, and for how many weeks? Who is liable if it stands longer? Is it a fully boarded working platform with edge protection and a proper ladder access, or a single lift to stand on? Is there a licence needed for the pavement, and who applies for it?
Our quotes include scaffolding and its hire period, and we will tell you before anything goes up if a licence is needed.
Questions
Can the scaffold go over my conservatory?
Usually, with a proper bridged design. It costs more than a straight run and it has to be allowed for rather than improvised on the day.
Do I need to tell my neighbour?
If the scaffold needs to sit on their land or oversail it, yes, and it is far better done as a conversation weeks before than as a surprise on the morning.