Painting house: Use ladder or staging?
Alan_Browning
I'll be painting my house soon. It's two stories high with cedar shingle siding
so I'll be spending most of my time up in the air. I'll be prepping (not much
to do thankfully), putting on a primer coat and then a finish coat. I have two
24 foot extension ladders available (mine and my father's). My question is
this: Is it worth getting any type of staging equipment or is the time saved by
being able to cover a greater area of siding negated by the time needed to set
up the staging? Or is the equipment too expensive? There may be other drawbacks
too.
What do you think of the following:
Brackets that attach to the rungs of two partallel ladders on which you rest a
wooden plank.
Those jacks that ride up and down parallel 4x4s (or sandwiched 2x4s) attached
to the siding, on which you rest a wooden plank.
Ladder standoffs - attach to the top of the ladder to afford more working room
at the top.
Alan
danh...@millcomm.com
In <5nmp0c$a...@cocoa.brown.edu>, Alan_B...@brown.edu (Alan_Browning) writes:
>I'll be painting my house soon. It's two stories high with cedar shingle siding
>so I'll be spending most of my time up in the air. I'll be prepping (not much
>to do thankfully), putting on a primer coat and then a finish coat. I have two
>24 foot extension ladders available (mine and my father's). My question is
>this: Is it worth getting any type of staging equipment or is the time saved by
>being able to cover a greater area of siding negated by the time needed to set
>up the staging? Or is the equipment too expensive? There may be other drawbacks
>too.
Yes to all of the above. Staging is expensive to rent/buy and takes a
lot of time to set up and take down, but it lets you work much faster,
especially if you have scraping to do or you're doing multiple coats.
It's also much safer.
A lot depends on what it will cost to rent the staging (if you even can --
it's not available for rent to individuals in some areas), and how fast
you will work (weekends only or flat out until the job is done).
>What do you think of the following:
>
>Brackets that attach to the rungs of two partallel ladders on which you rest a
>wooden plank.
Dunno.
>Those jacks that ride up and down parallel 4x4s (or sandwiched 2x4s) attached
>to the siding, on which you rest a wooden plank.
This is a better approach than staging if you can rent the jacks, and if
you can figure out a way to securely attach them to he house.
>Ladder standoffs - attach to the top of the ladder to afford more working room
>at the top.
Absolutely necessary if you use ladders, especially around windows.
Dan Hicks
Hey!! My advice is free -- take it for what it's worth!
http://www.millcomm.com/~danhicks
John Morine
>
> I used the ladder Jacks when prepping/painting my "too high" house,
worked
> great was inexpensive and a great time/labor saver.... as it was I used
two
> sets and three ladders thus had less ladder/plank moving to do. JAKE
>
>
I tried both, my home is 3 stories tall and I started with staging, but 90%
of our
time was spent in moving the staging and such, so I bought a couple of good
ladders
and finished the job in two days (I got one side done with the staging in
three).
John
R. Bishop
My personal preference in painting my two story house has been
staging for a couple of reasons.
Firstly I have a fear of heights & I don't think I would have
been comfortable up so high on a flexing wooden plank fastened to two
flexing ladders. I used 2x10 planks on my scaffolds but prefered the
platforms that I was able to rent with the scaffolds.
We had two sections of scaffolds side by side & since the
house was relatively small, they didn't have to moved often. Climbing
up & down the scaffolding seems easier than the ladder idea.
Secondly, the ground about your house has to be fairly flat
for scaffolding. If your yard isn't flat then maybe ladders with
platform brackets is for you.
Now for the cost. In my area the scaffold sections cost $7/wk
or $20/mth. I still have one side left on my house to paint yet &
expect to to be spending approx. two monthes and $150 just on
scaffolding & platforms.
What alot of work it's been. You can bet my next house will
have vinyl siding.
Remember safety, if you should fall you can't paint very well
with a broken leg.