Mobile scaffold tower inspection UK: before you climb

The tower is standing on the workshop concrete, the job is a ceiling or a high shelf a stepladder will not reach, and someone is about to step onto the frame. That is the moment for a mobile scaffold tower inspection: brakes, rails, stabilisers and the floor under the legs. The Health and Safety Executive expects the people who erect, inspect, use and dismantle a tower to be competent, and it expects a check after assembly. Where the work is construction and a fall of 2 metres or more is possible, the check repeats at least every seven days.

A folding hop-up is a different piece of kit. On 16 October 2026 the lowest listing in our mobile scaffolding comparison was a CattleBi hop-up at £79.11, with 4.4 from 104 reviews on amazon.co.uk and no wheels or guardrail stated. The checks below are for a tower with castors, rails, stabilisers and its own manual. Products Compared read those listings and the HSE and PASMA pages. There was no lab test. A purchase through our links can earn a commission at no extra cost to you.

In short

Inspect a mobile tower after you assemble it, before you climb, and again at least every seven days when construction work could mean a fall of 2 metres or more. Look again after a change, after weather or a knock that could have affected stability, and after a move that might have done the same. The build sequence stays in the manufacturer's manual. If the manual is missing, or a rail is off, you stop.

Before the first use

The first inspection happens when the tower is complete and before anyone treats it as a place of work. Match this frame, on this floor, to the manual: frames, braces, platforms, trapdoor, guardrails, toeboards, stabilisers and castors. A brace left in the van is a reason to pause. HSE tower guidance assumes guardrails, stabilisers, and a way up that keeps you off an open platform, either through the trap or with an advance guardrail.

Walk the base before you look up. Workshop concrete hides drain gullies and a drop at the roller door, and one light leg leans the tower. Lock each brake and try it with your boot. A lever that springs back fails the tower even when the legs look square. Then read the height against the manual's freestanding limit. An "8/12" mark is a maximum outdoors and a higher maximum indoors, and any tie the manual wants at that height is part of the check. Our mobile scaffolding buying guide lists what should be in the box.

The manual is the sequence

Hinge direction and brace order belong to the booklet for this model. If the manual is missing, leave the tower down. The guide to erecting a mobile scaffold tower keeps the public rules around the build and leaves the clicks in the booklet. Through the trap, you sit in the hatch and fit the guardrails before you stand on the deck. An advance guardrail protects the next level before you step onto it. Use the method printed for this tower.

How often the inspection is due

Every climb, confirm the brakes, the stabilisers and that nobody has lifted a rail. Where construction work could mean a fall of 2 metres or more, HSE asks for a written check after assembly and at least every seven days. PASMA matches that floor and tells you to inspect sooner when conditions require it.

Bring the date forward after a knock, a gale through an open door, or a partial strip to clear a beam. The 7 day scaffold inspection is a maximum gap in that case. Keep a written report with the date, the name and what you found, and keep it for three months after the work finishes.

The Work at Height Regulations 2005 place duties on employers and on people who control the work. A householder on one ceiling sits in a different legal seat from a firm with staff on the tower. If you control how others work at height, the inspection sits with you. If you are unsure the job counts as construction, keep the seven-day interval and ask a competent person before you stretch it.

Who signs the sheet

Name who signs when several people share the tower. A Monday sheet can still leave a castor unlocked on Thursday. Put the date where the next user can see it.

What you look at on the tower

HSE's figures to tape are a top guardrail at least 950 mm above the platform and no gap wider than 470 mm. Fit the top rail, the mid-rail and the toeboard as the manual shows. A rail in the wrong cup, or a toeboard lying loose on the deck, has not done the job.

Climb on the inside, through a trapdoor that opens and shuts. Climbing the outside leaves you beyond the rails. Look for a split deck, missing hooks and a slick of oil or dust, and clear loose tools off the hatch. Sight the legs for a lean. Reject bent braces, oval tubes, cracked welds and pins held with tape. Four stabilisers, meeting the floor as the manual draws them, are the HSE picture.

A star rating is not a certificate. None of the ten amazon.co.uk listings in the comparison stated BS EN 1004-1 or BS 8620. If you need a classed tower, ask which body certified it and keep that answer with the manual. Use the safe working load in the manual for people and tools together. A "300 kg" line on a marketplace title is a title. PASMA's operator code puts low-level platforms nearer 150 kg, and treats a sideways pull around 20 kg as a general limit.

Moving the tower on the workshop floor

Roll the tower only when the manual allows it. HSE says cut the platform to a maximum of 4 metres, push from the base, keep people and materials off, and stay out of wind. Overhead power lines are a stop, and a reason to fetch someone competent.

Raise the stabilisers only as the manual allows. PASMA's operator code describes a small lift, about 25 mm, so they clear the floor without coming off. At the new spot, lower the stabilisers, lock every castor, and check for a light leg on a slab joint before anyone climbs.

A move needs a new written report when the tower was altered or the move could have affected safety: a rail removed, a drop off a step, or a forced roll over a cable cover. Putting frames back after a doorway strip is a new assembly, so you inspect again on the floor where you will climb. Doorway limits for indoor work sit on our scaffold tower for decorating page.

When you stop and get someone trained

Sort an unlocked castor or a blocked hatch, then look again. Stop when the manual is missing, when fitting a rail would leave you on an open platform, when you need a tie you cannot point to in the manual, or when you are near power lines, on a stair, or above the freestanding height. Those jobs belong to someone trained on this tower.

Stop at the wind figure in your manual. PASMA's operator code says dismantle at Beaufort Force 4, about 17 mph, and a named manual can forbid moving at a lower speed. Use the stricter figure. An open roller door puts that wind on a tower standing just inside. Sheeting on the rails is a sail unless the manual allows the cover.

A guardrail taken off to pass a beam stays a stop until the rail, the mid-rail and the toeboard are back and you have inspected again. Leave the platform empty until then, and fit the rails from the trap or with the advance guardrail method. Leave ladders, steps and boxes off the deck.

At work, competence for a standard tower is PASMA's Towers for Users course, or an equivalent your employer accepts, plus this manual. Our podium and tower comparison separates those from an unguarded hop-up. For one ceiling at home, hire a tower you can be shown and keep the manual on the job. If you employ others, the written record applies to a hired tower as well as a bought one.