A Trailer Is Born

February 12, 2014

Or at least conceived!  I committed to a trailer today.  Wow, a little hard to believe!  Put $300 non-refundable bucks down on a $2350 trailer.  I hope I made the right choice in design and manufacturer.  The trailer manufacturer is in my neighborhood and has built several tiny-house-ready trailers.

Here are the specks:

We start with their 7,000lb GVWR, 7′x14′ standard flatbed “car-hauler" style trailer.  It’s framed with 5″x2″ tube steel with 3″ c-channel crossmembers.  No decking, stake pockets, nor tie-downs, and no fenders! (more on that later), no ramps or rails.  Trailer tires instead of the more expensive radial (I don’t plan to move this around all that much).  The manufacturer showed me previous tiny-house-ready designs they had built.  Some of them included an extension of the 7′ width, in front and behind the wheel wells.  I decided I liked this option.  It adds 10″ of width and provides a convenient method of bolting the house to the trailer frame.  The extra width is achieved by welding 5″x2″ tube steel horizontally to the outside of the main trailer frame (see picture).  I thought it looked a little cheesy and weak, so I drew up some modified plans on Google Sketchup to show to the manufacturer.  My modifications include a longer front and back frame member to support the flange, as well as gussets welded to the underside of the flange that connect it to the main trailer frame.  I also asked that the crossmembers be welded flush with the bottom of the main trailer frame in order to accommodate my foundation framing plan.  That’s about it.  I didn’t change the position of the axles, but that was an option.  Instead I’m using my best gut feelings to balance the weight of the house forward-to-backward and side-to-side.  Gut feelings seem to play a surprisingly dominant roll in both trailer and tiny house construction (as opposed to an engineer calculating out the strength of materials and expected loads and arriving at a technically correct design).

Below is one trailer manufacturer's tiny-house-ready trailer ($2800).  Observe how they have extended the width of the trailer by welding a piece of 5"x2" tube steel horizontally to the main perimeter frame.  You'll notice they then stuck a piece of angle iron onto the horizontal tube steel to extend the width even further.  I'm no engineer but this design strikes me as a little shoddy.