When the sun shines and the grass finally stops growing, it's time to turn our attention to outside decoration and maintenence. For most of us this means getting out that old shakey ladder and heading skywards with sander, brush and paint pot to tackle the painting jobs we've been putting off all year. Or perhaps it's the gutters that require a clean out, there's always plenty to do when the weather eventually picks up. But it's not easy or indeed safe tryng to work for long periods with both hands free on a ladder... and where on earth do you put everything, paint pots are heavy and there are only so many pockets to stuff with tools. Well, have you considered a scaffold tower? the advantages are manyfold, the most obvious being the large platform area you have to stand on as well as plenty of space to accomodate all of your tools and materials without needing to climb constantly up and down a ladder everytime you need something. As well as all that comfortable work area, you will be totally surrounded by a guardrail making a fall almost impossible. 

Now, scaffold towers come in a variety of shapes and sizes and while most are designed for intense industrial applications, there are systems designed for DIY use at home which are both lightweight yet strong and built to suit the occasional  home user's needs and budget. These kits are ideal for home DIY use, and provided they are used carefully and treated with respect, they will provide years of trouble free service. Unlike the industrial tower systems which are available in a huge range of widths, lengths, heights and types to service anything between a three bedroomed semi to the empire state building, DIY scaffold towers are generally limited to a couple of height options suitable for a standard two-storey house, allowing access to the most popular maintenance points around your home ( window frames, guttering etc.)  and costing just a few hundred pounds. These days such tower kits are produced from lightweight, corrosion free aluminium, and feature easy, quickly assembled components which allow speedy erection without any tools... a basic kit enabling you to reach around 4.5m (first floor windows) can be erected in less than 10 minutes and will give you a safe platform from which to work for lengthy periods in comfort. DIY Towers are generally around 1.5m long x 500mm wide, plenty of space for you and your tools and materials. The alloy frames from which the scaffold is built feature conveniently spaced rungs allowing for easy climbing up and down while hinged trapdoors in the platforms give simple safe access up onto the upper working platform. One safety point worth mentioning is that all scaffolds must be climbed from within the structure, this way it is impossible to pull the tower over which could easily happen if you try to climb up the outside of a tower. Smaller DIY Towers feature horizontal stabilising bars fixed at ground level which have the effect of increasing the tower's footprint and adding stability, preventing it from falling over. Larger kits feature clamp on stabilisers at each corner of the tower offering much improved support and greater stability. DIY Tower kits also utilise a pair of wheels fixed at the one end of the tower. This makes moving the tower easy... you simply tilt the tower enough for the wheels to contact the ground then manouvre the tower into the required position before lowering the stucture back down onto it's stabilisers.

DIY tower kits are designed for easy assembly without the need for tools, and most of the erection process can be accomplished by one person, but you will need assistance when erecting taller towers from someone at ground level to pass up components as you get higher. Most DIY towers are modular systems which means you can start with a small basic kit, then as you grow more confident you can purchase an additional pack of components to increase your tower's height... just be sure to comply with the manufacturer's instructions when it comes to maximum heights as towers can become dangerously unstable if built too high. 

DIY scaffold towers offer a truly versatile, safe and comfortable way of tackling high jobs around the home and can pay for themselves in a very short period as your tower will enable you to tackle jobs previously possible only by employing professional tradesmen and we all know how costly that can be.

If you have any questions or would just like to talk to someone about the right choice of tower for you, our friendly,knowledgable team will be happy to help... call us on 01527 821651  we would love to hear from you.