What actually drives the price of a scaffold?

The measure

How much scaffold it actually is. Everything else is worked out off this figure, so it is the one to get right before you price anything.

• Length along the elevation and height to the top lift. That gives you the bays and the lifts, and the bays and the lifts give you the kit.
• Every extra bay is another standard, another set of ledgers and transoms, the boards to deck it and the fittings to hold the lot together.
• Every extra lift is another set of ledgers, another guard rail and the intermediate rail under it.
• How many boards wide the platform is changes the transoms and the board count on every bay and every lift at once. A five board deck is not a three board deck with two boards thrown on.
• Then the parts that are not the flat elevation: returns, a beam over an opening, a loading bay, a hop-up, an inside birdcage, a tower to get up it.
• Sheeting or netting, and the ties that go with them. A sheeted scaffold catches the wind, and what it is tied into belongs to somebody else.
• What comes out of the far end is a kit list and a weight. That is the take-off, and the weight is what tells you how many loads.

The duration and the hire

Kit standing on their job is kit that cannot earn on anybody else's. This is the half of a scaffold price that gets forgotten.

• A scaffold price is two prices in one: the work of erecting and dismantling, and the hire of the steel for the weeks agreed.
• Agree the weeks in writing at the start, and in the same breath say what a week over costs. A job that quietly runs on is the commonest way a good month turns into a bad one.
• Duration also buys visits. A working platform used for construction work from which a person could fall 2 metres or more must not be used in a position unless it has been inspected in that position within the previous 7 days. That is regulation 12(4) of the Work at Height Regulations 2005, which apply in England, Wales and Scotland. Northern Ireland has its own Work at Height Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2005, and its regulation 12(4) gives the same 7 days.
• HSE gives the same interval and adds the other occasions: an inspection after installation and before first use, and again after anything liable to jeopardise the safety of the installation, high winds being its own example. Each one is a competent person, a visit and a written record.
• So a scaffold that stands six months is not six months of nothing happening. Count those visits into what you charge for the weeks, because somebody is driving to them.

Where this comes from
legislation.gov.uk, Work at Height Regulations 2005, regulation 12 [1]. HSE, Scaffolds [2]. legislation.gov.uk, Work at Height Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2005, regulation 12 [11].

The labour

Man days up and man days down, and the dismantle is not half the erect just because it feels quicker.

• How many people, for how many days, to erect it. Then ask the same question again for taking it down, which nobody does until the wagon is booked.
• Height, access and awkwardness. A job a wagon can pull alongside is a different job from one where every tube goes round the back through a garden gate, and the carrying is the cost that never reaches the quote.
• Waiting time. A gang stood on site because the brickwork is not off is being paid for by somebody, and where nothing was agreed, that somebody is you.
• Say in the quote who takes it down and out of whose money. In words, not implied.

The transport

Loads, not miles. Steel is heavy and a wagon has a plated weight, so the weight off your take-off is the number that decides this one.

• Work the loads off the weight of the kit rather than off the look of the job. A modest elevation with a five board deck and a loading bay can be two loads.
• Access at both ends, and when you are allowed in. A drop you cannot make until the school run is over costs you the morning whatever the mileage says.
• Then remember all of it comes back. Off hire is a second set of loads and a second set of man hours, to the yard, off the wagon and counted back onto the rack.

Scaffold on or over the pavement needs a licence

In England and Wales, if any of it stands on the highway or over it, footway included, and obstructs it, you need a licence in writing from the highway authority before it goes up, and you have to keep to its terms. Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own rule, at the foot of this.

• Section 169 of the Highways Act 1980 is headed Control of scaffolding on highways, and it applies in England and Wales. Section 169(1) is that no person shall, in connection with building or demolition work or the repair, maintenance or cleaning of a building, erect or retain on or over a highway any scaffolding or other structure which obstructs the highway, unless he is authorised to do so by a licence in writing from the highway authority and complies with the terms of the licence.
• On or over. A scaffold cantilevered out above the footway with not one standard on the pavement is still over the highway, and HSE says scaffolds which encroach over the highway, pavements included, require a licence under section 169.
• The licence carries duties of its own. Section 169(4) puts three on the person it was issued to: keep the structure adequately lit from half an hour after sunset to half an hour before sunrise, follow any written directions the authority gives about traffic signs, and do what statutory undertakers reasonably ask so their apparatus is protected or can be got at. Lighting and signing are work, and they are yours.
• Section 169(5) makes it an offence to put one up or keep one up without a licence, or without reasonable excuse to break its terms or leave those duties undone, and the fine goes up to level 5 on the standard scale.
• The words fee, charge and payment do not appear in section 169 at all. What a licence costs, how long it runs and how long the council takes to grant it are your own authority's business. Ring them before you price the job, not after you have won it.
• Section 169 does not reach Scotland or Northern Ireland. In Scotland, section 59 of the Roads (Scotland) Act 1984 says nothing shall be placed or deposited in a road so as to cause an obstruction except with the roads authority's consent in writing. In Northern Ireland, article 72 of the Roads (Northern Ireland) Order 1993 makes it an offence to erect scaffolding on a road in connection with building work, unless it is done with the consent of the Department. The duties above are section 169's, so ask whoever gives the consent where you are what comes with it.

Where this comes from
HSE, Scaffolds [2]. legislation.gov.uk, Highways Act 1980, section 169, Control of scaffolding on highways [3]. legislation.gov.uk, Roads (Scotland) Act 1984, section 59, Control of obstructions in roads [9]. legislation.gov.uk, Roads (Northern Ireland) Order 1993, article 72, Erection of scaffolding, hoardings, etc. on a road [10].

Off a standard configuration, somebody has to design it

A scaffold put up to a recognised standard configuration needs no calculation. Anything outside one does, and that is a real cost on an awkward job.

• HSE says that unless a scaffold is assembled to a generally recognised standard configuration it must be designed by bespoke calculation, by a competent person. It gives NASC TG20 for tube and fitting as an example of such a configuration.
• Changing one counts too. HSE's position is that once an alteration takes a scaffold outside that standard configuration, a competent person has to design it and prove it by calculation.
• So the shop front with a beam over it and a bridge round the bay window carries a design somebody has to pay for. Put it in at the start, because it is a poor conversation to have once the job is yours.
• TG20 is a paid NASC publication. It is named here and it is not quoted, because we have not bought your copy and will not put words in it.

Where this comes from
HSE, Scaffolds [2]. NASC, TG20 for tube and fitting scaffolding, on the NASC ePortal [8].

Every adaptation is another little job

Move a lift, take a bay out for a window, add a loading bay. Each one is a visit, a gang and a fresh inspection.

• Regulation 12(2) of the Work at Height Regulations 2005 is that work equipment whose safety depends on how it was installed or assembled must not be used after assembly or installation in any position unless it has been inspected in that position. Those Regulations apply in England, Wales and Scotland, and regulation 12(2) of the Northern Ireland ones says the same.
• HSE puts the same thing in the yard's words: an inspection after installation and before first use, and again after anything liable to jeopardise the safety of the installation.
• So say in the quote what an adaptation costs, or say plainly that each one is priced in writing when it is asked for. What sinks a job is absorbing them one at a time and wondering afterwards where the money went.

Where this comes from
legislation.gov.uk, Work at Height Regulations 2005, regulation 12 [1]. HSE, Scaffolds [2]. legislation.gov.uk, Work at Height Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2005, regulation 12 [11].

CIS holds money back, and only off part of it

Where you are a subcontractor to a contractor, they do not pay you the whole invoice. They pay HMRC some of it on your account.

• HMRC gives the rates as 20% for registered subcontractors, 30% for unregistered subcontractors, and 0% where the subcontractor has gross payment status. Ten pence in the pound is the price of not being registered.
• It does not come off the whole invoice. Before the rate is worked out, HMRC says to take off VAT, equipment that is no longer usable, fuel apart from travelling, equipment hired for the job, manufacturing or prefabricating materials, and materials the subcontractor paid for themselves.
• So how the invoice splits labour from materials decides how much is held back. Show the split, keep the receipts that prove the materials, and do not guess at it on a job you are already tight on.
• Hire only is outside it. HMRC's reverse charge guide says the hire of goods only is not within the scope of the Construction Industry Scheme, so kit you hire out for somebody else to put up is not CIS work.

Where this comes from
HMRC on GOV.UK, What you must do as a Construction Industry Scheme (CIS) contractor: make deductions and pay subcontractors [4]. HMRC on GOV.UK, VAT domestic reverse charge technical guide [6].

The reverse charge takes the VAT off some scaffold invoices, not all of them

On standard and reduced rate work for a customer who is VAT and CIS registered, they account for the VAT instead of you. Hire only, a zero rated job like new build housing, and an end user who tells you so in writing all stay on normal VAT rules.

• The standard rate of VAT is 20%.
• HMRC says the domestic reverse charge applies to standard and reduced rate VAT services, between businesses registered for VAT in the UK, on work reported within the Construction Industry Scheme. Where it applies, the customer accounts for the VAT instead of you: you invoice without it and note on the invoice that the reverse charge applies and they account for the VAT.
• Scaffolding is in it when the work is. HMRC's technical guide says scaffolding supplied for standard or reduced rated construction work, the hire, erection and dismantling together, is liable to VAT at the standard rate and goes under the reverse charge if all the other conditions are met, unless the customer is an end user. One charge covering the hire and the labour is reverse charged in full.
• Hire only is not in it. HMRC says the hire of goods only is not within the scope of the Construction Industry Scheme, so the reverse charge does not apply to the hire charge. Kit you hire out for somebody else to put up carries VAT in the normal way, whoever the customer is.
• A zero rated job is not in it either. The reverse charge does not apply if the scaffolding is supplied for a zero rated construction project, such as new build housing. There the erecting and dismantling can be zero rated, and the hire is not covered by the zero rate and carries VAT, both under normal VAT rules. Show the hire and the labour as separate charges, because that split is what lets the labour be zero rated.
• It stops at an end user. HMRC describes one as a business, or group of businesses, VAT and CIS registered, that does not make onward supplies of the construction services it receives, and the charge does not apply once the end user has told you in writing that is what it is. Get that in writing and keep it with the job.
• This is the one on the list that takes real money off a yard that guesses, in both directions. Ask your accountant which side of it each customer is on before you raise the invoice.

Where this comes from
HMRC on GOV.UK, VAT rates [5]. HMRC on GOV.UK, VAT domestic reverse charge technical guide [6]. HMRC on GOV.UK, Check when you must use the VAT domestic reverse charge for building and construction services [7].