How To Paint Outside Of House Without Scaffolding?

Scaffolding tower options offer excellent stability for tradespeople and homeowners alike. They’re sturdy and resistant to rust and weathering and can be used in multiple scenarios – excellent if you’re a tradesperson who carries out exterior paint work to houses for a living.

However, there’s no denying that sometimes scaffold towers aren’t right for the job. Perhaps the area surrounding the home is too tight, you have multiple workers on site capable of tackling all sides of the house at once, etc. Here, scaffolding may actually prove to be a hindrance rather than a help.

Below we’ll explore some of the better options when scaffolding simply isn’t right for the job when painting the outside of a house.

Downsides To Hiring A Scaffold Installation Service

Even if you don’t buy one of our scaffold towers, hiring scaffolding can come at a significant cost depending on the size of the property you require. For a typical two-storey semi-detached property you’d need to pay around £650 to £1100 per week in hiring fees. If this is your business, that eats significantly into your profit margins, and if you’re a homeowner that increases the cost of your job by quite a bit.

Hiring scaffolding might be a good idea for one job, but if your day job involves you being up scaffolding and ladders with masonry paint in hand day after day, then hiring isn’t going to work.

Our scaffold towers can help, but for those more unique jobs, you’ll want to consider some alternatives.

Painting Your Home’s Exterior Without Scaffolding – What Are The Options?

Considering how many coats it takes to paint straight on to outdoor surfaces, you’ll be working at height for quite some time when painting your home’s exterior. That means you need to seriously consider if scaffold towers are the best tool for the job. If you determine it isn’t, then any of the following could prove to be what you’re looking for.

Extendable Tools

Extension poles can be a great way to paint exterior walls, provided you’re dealing with a relatively small home. Otherwise, it’ll take far too long to complete the task, even with multiple workers. Of course, if you’re looking as a homeowner trying to complete the work yourself and you’re less bothered about how long it takes you, then extendable poles are an excellent choice.

For professionals and many homeowners though, whilst affordable, they won’t prove to be effective for a project as large as this. Not only can extendable poles become unreliable with continued use but they can be cumbersome for extended use.

When trying to avoid window frames, or apply wood treatments etc before exterior wood paint, extendable tools rule themselves out as a viable option due to poor accuracy.

Ladder Options

Ladders are an obvious next choice. At BPS Depot, we have a range of ladder options which can bring a new lease of life to the way you approach exterior wall painting as a tradesperson. With a huge range of ladder options, you’re sure to find something appropriate with us.

If you’re working on uneven ground, for example, then our tripod ladders can stabilise your balance with a spike or rubber grip. This makes those difficult to reach jobs much simpler. Although, of course you’ll need to move the ladder into position time and time again, making it a little more time consuming. However, if you don’t have the room for scaffolding and the site is more difficult for ladder use, then a tripod ladder is one of the better solutions available to you.

Another option is a simple extension ladder. At BPS, we pride ourselves on our range of extension ladders. With 2 and 3 section ladders available, you’re sure to find one that’s suitable for painting your exteriors. The beauty of an extension ladder is in the way it can be manipulated to the perfect height for the job at hand, so if you’re a handy-person who is likely to be needing ladders at multiple sites for exterior house painting, then having a versatile ladder like this is key.

You can take a look at our complete ladder range for more ideas, but the tripod and extension ladders discussed above are likely to be the most useful ladders for those looking to ladders for painting their homes where scaffold towers aren’t appropriate.

Remember to look for an appropriate ladder for the task at hand.

Step Platforms

The problem with ladders is that you’ll need to reposition them every so many metres as you paint your house. If it requires two coats or more, then every time you apply a fresh coat of paint you’ll need to reposition the ladder again and again, and that can get old pretty fast.

You might also find that the individual rungs of ladders are uncomfortable for lengthy painting sessions and you might miss the stability underfoot of the scaffolding platform. You can buy additional step platforms for ladders that help increase comfort and confidence when using ladders for exterior painting.

Platforms are great for resting paint, tools like a wire brush for removing green growth and fungi before applying paint to the exterior of your home, and masking tape for protecting window frames too, giving you the full arsenal of equipment you’ll need right at your finger tips.

Step platforms offer you the chance to personalise your ladders to your exact needs when scaffolding is simply not an option at the home you’re working at.

Best Access Platforms for Painting Outside

We know, we know – we’ve just spent all that time talking about how scaffolding isn’t always usable, which is true, but when it can be used for the task it probably should be. Why? It’s so much safer and it makes the job so much quicker.

Access platforms are the perfect solution when you don’t want to hire scaffolding but still require a scaffold tower to complete the job safely and quickly. If you’re a professional home exterior painter, then there’s no denying you’ll need both a versatile ladder and your own scaffold tower unit to effectively tackle every house you arrive at.

Our access towers come in all shapes and sizes allowing you to find the perfect fit for you. All of which are known for the stability that traditional scaffolding provides, but the flexibility to be able to disassemble and reassemble them at various sites according to your business needs. We even offer a range of DIY scaffold towers for home use.

All of our scaffold towers offer vertical and horizontal flexibility so can be moved around and configured to the needs of the house you’re painting.

Alternatively, our Trade Master Professional is one of our easiest and quickest of all towers to erect and dismantle towers, as it is built around a folding base, so it’s perfect for professionals who will need to move their scaffold towers around from job to job.

Conclusion on Painting Your House Exterior Walls

Hiring scaffolding is sometimes necessary when carrying out a paint job on the exterior of a home. However, it can quickly add up and the project costs can skyrocket. It might be worthwhile if you’re the homeowner and you only intend to do this once or twice over the course of owning the home – but if you’re a professional then this is not viable.

When you start painting houses as a business venture, you need your own equipment that makes accessing all properties straightforward, and means you can complete the job in the safest way possible.

Scaffold towers help, extension poles may be necessary at times, and ladders and step platforms will all be required depending on the nature of the site.

Remember in order for the paint film to stick to the exterior properly, one coat of paint will rarely do the job. A second coat is almost certainly going to be necessary, so an important aspect of picking the right equipment for the job has to be considering how quickly you can complete the work on the outside of the house without having to reposition and move your equipment every metre or two.

Consider your options and place an order with our team at BPS Depot today.