Prices
What scaffolding actually costs.
Most scaffolding firms will not put a number anywhere near a website. Here are ours — real ranges for real jobs, and an honest account of what moves them.
A price given over the phone without seeing a building is a guess, and usually an optimistic one. What follows is a set of ranges wide enough to be honest. Where your job lands inside one depends on the eight things listed further down.
Everything here includes erection, dismantle and the first eight weeks of hire. Prices exclude VAT and any council licence fee, which we pass on at cost.
Ballpark prices by job.
| Job | Guide price | What that covers |
|---|---|---|
| Chimney stack access | £350 – £650 | Single stack, tower or cantilevered platform depending on whether there is ground below it. |
| Gable end only | £400 – £750 | One elevation, typically for pointing, render patching or a bit of roof edge. |
| Terraced house, one elevation | £450 – £850 | Front or rear. Rear access on a terrace is often the thing that moves this number. |
| Semi-detached, roof scaffold | £900 – £1,600 | Two or three elevations with edge protection for a re-roof. |
| Detached house, full scaffold | £1,400 – £2,800 | All four elevations, boarded and guardrailed, usually for a re-roof or full re-render. |
| Shopfront or high street frontage | £1,200 – £3,500 | With a pavement gantry so the footway stays open. Licence costs are extra and vary by council. |
| Temporary roof, domestic | £3,500 – £9,000 | Gable-to-gable sheeted roof on beams. Span and wind exposure drive this more than floor area. |
| Emergency make-safe | £500 – £1,200 | Initial callout and make-safe, out of hours. Converts to a standard hire if the repair follows. |
| Commercial and industrial | From £2,000 | Too variable to band honestly. Priced from drawings or a site visit, never over the phone. |
Guide ranges only, excluding VAT and licence fees. Every quote we give is fixed, in writing, and free.
What moves the price.
Height and number of lifts
Every lift is more tube, more boards, more guardrail and more time. A three-storey job is not one and a half times a two-storey job.
How many elevations
A scaffold round three sides of a house costs roughly three times one side. Obvious, but it is the single most common reason two quotes differ.
Access for the wagon
If we can drop tube at the door, it is quicker. If everything has to be carried through a ginnel or round the back of a terrace, that is labour before we start building.
Ground conditions
Firm level hard standing is cheap. Soft ground, slopes, gardens, and anything needing serious load spreading is not.
Sheeting and netting
Debris netting is modest. Full sheeting turns the scaffold into a sail, which means more ties and often a design — so it costs more than the sheet itself.
Pavement or highway
Anything over a public footway needs a licence from the council, a gantry or fan, and pedestrian protection. Licence fees vary and are charged at cost.
How long you need it
Our prices include the first eight weeks. After that there is a weekly extension charge, which for a domestic job is usually modest — but it is worth knowing before the builder overruns.
Whether it needs designing
Standard configurations are covered by TG20:21 and cost nothing extra. Anything outside it needs drawings and calculations, and that is real engineering time.
Straight answers.
How much does scaffolding cost for a house?
For a typical West Cumbrian semi-detached house, a roof scaffold covering two or three elevations runs between £900 and £1,600. A single gable or one elevation of a terrace is usually £400 to £850, and a full scaffold to a detached house is £1,400 to £2,800. The figure depends most on how many elevations you need, how high the building is, and whether we can get a wagon near it.
How long is scaffolding hire included in the price?
Our quoted price includes the first eight weeks of hire, erection and dismantle. After eight weeks there is a weekly extension charge, which for a domestic job is modest. We would rather tell you that up front than surprise you when your builder overruns.
Do I need a licence for scaffolding on the pavement?
Yes. If any part of the scaffold stands on or over a public footway or road you need a licence from the local authority. We arrange it as part of the job and charge the fee at cost. Licences take time to come through, so it is worth telling us early if the scaffold has to go on the pavement.
Does scaffolding need planning permission?
Not normally. Scaffolding is temporary, so it does not usually need planning permission even on a listed building. What it may need is listed building consent for the fixings, or agreement on tie positions if you are in a conservation area or inside the Lake District National Park. We sort that out before we quote rather than after.
How quickly can you get scaffolding up?
For most domestic jobs in Workington, Whitehaven and the surrounding towns we can be on site within a week, often sooner. Emergency and storm-damage work is different — we answer the phone through the night and will make a building safe the same day.
Do you charge for a quote?
No. Quotes are free and there is no obligation. If the job is straightforward we can price it from a few photographs and a postcode. If it is not, we will come and look at it, and we will tell you if you do not actually need a scaffold.
Can I use the scaffold myself, or let my builder alter it?
You can use it once it has been handed over with a certificate. Nobody should alter it except us. Moving a guardrail or lifting a board to get something through changes the structure, and it needs re-inspecting and re-certifying afterwards. Ring us and we will come and alter it, usually the same day.
What makes one scaffolding quote more expensive than another?
Usually one of four things: the number of elevations, whether it is sheeted, whether it needs a design, and how long the hire period is. If two quotes differ a lot, compare those before comparing the totals. A cheap quote with a four-week hire period is not cheaper than a dearer one with eight.
Get a real number.
Ranges only get you so far. Send us a postcode, a job type and a couple of photographs and we will give you a fixed price, in writing, at no cost.
Get a price
Price your scaffold today.
Tell us the job and roughly how big it is, and you get a price from the person who will build it. No estimator, no call centre, no scaffold you did not ask for.