Advice for painting front of house

[Witchazel]

I need some advice for painting the front of my house. It is a fairly ordinary Victorian terrace - so not particularly high. But I am not confident about using a ladder. Also quite a busy street, so even if I'm careful someone could walk into it! I prefer the idea of a mini tower / scaffold thing. What is the cheapest way to get hold of one - expensive to hire? Better to buy and sell on eBay once we have finished?

We had a local handyman paint ours, was £80 a day, all done in 3 days. He bought his own ladders etc, the paint cost £40 (Dulux weather shield).

Mine is a fairly big 3 bed semi with garage.

Cheap as chips

You really need a stand off attachment to a ladder for painting. It's a hook type extension to the top of the ladder. With one attached you are away from what you are painting at height. Handy for a paint bucket to hook to the aluminum arms, sturdy rubber anti slip surfaces to the part that comes in contact with the wall . Ladders need to be set up at the right angle, and most now come with a label on the side that has to have the arrow in the vertical position. On soft ground a piece of carpet will help keep a ladder stable

Forgot to mention with the stand off attached the ladder is far more stable , never lean out too far on a ladder. When I was a kid a man pointing his gable end wall did and it killed him. Unfortunately we kids saw him fall and it has never left me
A bloke near me had one of those platform kits , they delivered it and collected it afterwards from the tool hire shop

Eeek Roneik - that story above confirms exactly why I think I'll go with the mini tower option :-/

I have had numerous quotes for this job and unfortunately I live somewhere many tradespersons seem to bump up prices just cos they can. Cheapest is £535... Hence doing it myself.