Selecting your domestic tower

Measure up

Firstly, measure up! It might sound simple, or even obvious, but knowing what height you need to reach is the most important step in choosing the right tower for the job, whether it is clearing leaves/moss out of your gutters, painting, decorating or pruning those trees and hedges.

If we had a penny for every customer who said “I want to clean my gutters on a standard 2 storey house”, we’d be, well, only 10p richer but still, the height of the bricks used, how large the step up is into the house, the ceiling height on each floor, the pitch of the roof and how much the gutters overhang, will all vary determining the gutter height, and whilst we are always more than happy to help we cannot, unfortunately, tell you how high your gutters are despite our best efforts!

So, grab a tape measure, laser distance measuring device, etc. and measure up.

There are always 3 heights to consider when choosing a tower; The platform height which is the maximum height of the platform i.e. where your feet will be standing on, the tower height, typically 1m above the platform, which is how tall the tower is (be aware of this if you have overhead obstacles or are working indoors) and the working height which is where the average height person can reach to with their hands above their heads. We, and almost all others in the scaffold tower industry, calculate this as 2m above the platform or the same height as the average door frame. If you are unsure, then measure how high you can reach just to confirm.

Please see below link for a handy diagram to help explain the difference between platform height, tower height and working height:

Height Specification

The other consideration on these heights, for example when cleaning out of your gutters, is if you simply want to reach into the gutters without seeing into them then reference the working height (or platform height plus your reach height), or if you wanted to be able to see into the gutters then reference the platform height plus your shoulder height, or if you wanted to be above the gutter then reference the tower height will put the average height person’s waist around the gutter height.

You might also want to consider the extra reach obtained from tools you are going to be using, for example a paint brush, roller, hedge trimmer etc.

If you are working indoors or have overhead obstacles, then you will also need to consider the maximum height of tower that will fit underneath so measure this also.

If it helps you to decide on the appropriate domestic tower range this early in the article:

Our Light Duty DIY Towers and Medium Duty DIY Towers have a maximum working height of 6.8m as standard and the Heavy Duty DIY Towers have a maximum working height of 9m as standard. Don’t’ worry if you don’t need the maximum height, as we offer multiple heights in each of the domestic tower ranges. Any taller than these then you would need to look at our Trade King and Industrial Tower ranges.

How frequently will the tower be used?

Next, work out how often you will be using the tower. Our Light Duty DIY Towers and Medium Duty DIY Towers are ideal for infrequent use and occasional use respectively, with their bolt and wing nut brace design. Our Heavy Duty DIY Towers are ideal for regular use, with their heavy duty quick clamp locking braces, so can be assembled and disassembled in roughly half the time of the Light Duty DIY and Medium Duty DIY tower equivalents. All tower types have colour coded braces for easy selection during assembly and no tools are required to build them.

Ground conditions

What ground conditions are you going to be working on? If it’s on completely flat ground, indoors or outdoors, then the standard towers with base bars (horizontal stabiliser bars) are the most cost-effective option. If it’s on stairwells/steps or uneven ground where the tower doesn’t need to be moved around, then the Advanced versions are supplied with screw threaded height adjustable base plates also. And if it’s on uneven ground where the tower needs to be moved around often, then the Advanced Plus versions are supplied with screw threaded height adjustable locking wheels so these will be perfect choice for you.

Some other considerations, which we get asked about regularly, is how flexible these towers are and what are they like for storage and transportation, so answers to these frequently asked questions as below:

Flexibility

The platform can be placed on any of the lower ladder rungs, in 0.3m increments on the Light Duty DIY Towers and Medium Duty DIY Towers and in 0.25m increments on the Heavy Duty DIY Towers, for comfortable working over a variety of heights, just making sure to lower the guardrail at the same time for your safety.

If you lower the platform and guardrail enough then the frame sections can be removed also, once the diagonal braces have been removed, for a more convenient tower height. In 1 metre sections on the Heavy Duty DIY Towers and in 2 metre sections on the Light Duty DIY Towers and Medium Duty DIY Towers, making the Heavy Duty DIY Towers more flexible in terms of the different tower heights you can construct from a single unit, coincidentally why we refer to them “X in ONE” in some of our website literature as you can build X number of the tower variants using that one tower. The frame design on the Heavy Duty DIY Towers also makes them much more easily upgradeable so you might want to consider this if you were planning to extend the tower for another job at a future date.

For detailed information on the frame sizes, and possibly answers to any other questions that you may have on the differences between the domestic tower types, please see our detailed comparison table.

Storage and transportation

The package sizes for each tower are on the individual product pages at the bottom of the description table. Don’t worry about finding these now! Once you have gotten to the end of this article you will hopefully be able to navigate to the appropriate product page to see these details.

And in terms of the individual components:

The bulkiest components on the Light Duty DIY Towers and Medium Duty DIY Towers are the:

6 Rung Base Frames @ 180 x 64 x 4cm
6 Rung Upper Frames @ 209 x 64 x 4cm
7 Rung Frames @ 225 x 64 x 4cm
Trapdoor Platform @ 165 x 50 x 6cm

The next longest components are the:

Diagonal Braces @ 179cm long
Combination Braces @ 179cm long
Horizontal Braces @ 155cm long
If applicable, Telescopic Outriggers @ 179cm long
The bulkiest

The bulkiest components on the Heavy Duty DIY Towers are the:

4 Rung Base Frames @ 106 x 64 x 4cm
4 Rung Frames @ 115 x 64 x 4cm
Guardrails @ 165 x 53 x 2.5cm
Trapdoor Platform @ 165 x 50 x 6cm

The next longest components are the:

Diagonal Braces @ 195cm long
Horizontal Braces @ 165cm long
If applicable, Telescopic Outriggers @ 179cm long and Large Outrigger Extensions @ 228cm long

Now, once you have navigated to the appropriate product page, you can use the component list and dimensions above to check if the tower will fit in your shed, garage, cupboard, etc. and the vehicle load space required for transportation.

Top Tip: Aluminium does not rust so you can store most of the components outside if you wish. It is advisable to store the platforms indoors though as they will wear out quicker in wet conditions.

Safety

All our domestic towers have a safe working load of 150kg per platform. The platforms are tested to EN 1004 Class 3 Standard for your safety and reassurance also. All of the platforms have a trapdoor in them – The tower is always climbed internally, ‘Through The Trapdoor’ (3T compliant) which is then lowered to form part of the platform.

Telescopic Outriggers are included as standard on towers with working heights above 5 metres and can be added on the lower heights for extra stability also. Extra-large (XL) outriggers are supplied with the tallest Heavy Duty DIY Towers to further enlarge the footprint of the tower and result in rock solid stability and offer ultimate user confidence.

All our domestic towers are available with a toeboard, which prevents items falling from the top platform level, and additional guard rails at intermediate platform levels making these the safest domestic towers in the marketplace.

Tower selection

Finally, once you have covered all of the above, see help in selecting your domestic tower for a handy questionnaire; a summary of everything you have read so far with 3-4 quick questions and clickable answers to get to you to the appropriate model page. Then it’s just a case of selecting the appropriate tower height using your measurements.

There’s a specification table with all the dimensions on each of the product pages and a clickable link just beneath the product title for the towers technical diagram and component list; You can use the component list and component dimensions in the storage and transportation section above to calculate your storage/vehicle load space. Don’t forget, the package sizes are at the bottom of the description table on the product page also if you don’t fancy working it out!

Hopefully this gets you one step closer to choosing the most suitable domestic tower for your needs. If you have any questions or would like further advice, please feel free to contact us.