I was recently trying to find an alternative to the Altrex scaffolding - as whilst it is available here, like most things here they are quite pricey... A working height of 6m so a platform level of 4m was going to set me back about 1200 euros that's about 1700 USD which for my use is a bit too much for me to pay at the moment.

Anyway, to cut a long story short I looked as far away as Germany (where the prices are often about 30% cheaper) to France, and the UK. This is what I found out.

Shipping costs will kill the deal!

In the UK there were several people doing a much cheaper version of the modular aluminium style scaffold towers only they are made from galvanised steel. (Search on Google or google.co.uk for "galvanised scaffold") The purchase price is way cheaper but the shipping costs are stupid - so you end up paying roughly the same amount of money for an aluminium one bought here. No point eh?

It might be of interest to a group of people that live closer together however (if you were all looking for scaffolding???) that there is a willing Chinese solution that I found:-

http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/51751306/Aluminum_Tower_Scaffold_with_4_3m.html

P.S Engatwork I'm glad you've found a stable work platform! As for the animal damage is there any way you can treat the wood and add braces to the affected area? Otherwise it looks like a (hopefully partial) roof off job to me. (Sorry to send bad news!)