The cost of scaffold towers has come down significantly in the past few years and they are now more in the reach of DIYers than ever before, both in terms of hiring them and buying them from new. Having said this though they are still a significant outlay so many people choose to hire them. The thing is, that any task that is worth the effort of building a scaffold tower is probably going to take quite a while to complete and this means that you will be lumbered with that hire cost for a number weeks. It may therefore prove beneficial to think outside the box as to how you could get a scaffold tower cheaper. Here are my three suggestions:
Buy with friends
Buying with friend’s works out to be possibly your cheapest option of getting a scaffold tower, you do of course have to deal with politics of who looks after it and who broke what they etc etc. So although save you money it may bring new stresses in other areas.
Buying second-hand
The second-hand option is a good one, but I would only recommend it only if you could visit the tower prior to the exchange of money. Because most of these towers that are intended for DIY use are made from aluminium when they break they tend to snap rather than bend. The more traditional steel sort would just bend instead. You can tell if an aluminium tube casting is going to break from the fine hairline cracks but you certainly wouldn’t be at a spot this in a photo and hence why you would want to inspect the tower firsthand. The Aluminium Scaffold Tower Site has more information about checks you should carry out when looking for a second hand aluminium scaffold tower.
Buy and then sell
This is potentially one of the easiest ways to acquire a tower and could work out to be the cheapest to. All you need to do is buy the tower you’re looking for, use it and look after it well and then you can set it on. This way you had the benefit of using a brand-new tower but will pay a fraction of the cost because you should be able to sell it at least 75% of the cost price to you.
