Rent a lift or buy a scaffold for a 2 story repaint?

I'm looking at a 3 week exterior job on a 2 story house in Lincoln and the rental lift runs about $900 while a used scaffold setup from a guy on Craigslist would be $1200. I've only used scaffolds a few times and the idea of moving it around the whole house feels slow, but the lift needs a flat yard and this one has a sloped back. Has anyone here gone either route and which one ended up being the better call?

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colegarcia5d ago

That slope is going to be the whole ballgame honestly. A lift on uneven ground is a nightmare, you'll be shimming pads and checking level every time you move it, and 3 weeks of that gets old fast. For $1200 you can get a good set of rolling towers from a guy who knows what he's got, and you can level each section with screw jacks in about 10 minutes. The moving around part is slower at first but once you get a rhythm going, you can roll a 10 foot section down the yard in a few minutes. Plus you can set up two sections at a time and just keep leapfrogging materials, which is way faster than one lift spot.