The Cubit's Trailer

I picked up the trailer, the foundation of my tiny house, on Wednesday.

The trailer was fabricated by Brian Nilsen, who has a metal fabrication shop in his 2-bay garage on a bend in the road between Cambridge and Greenwich, NY. I designed the trailer with Brian, and he & I figured out a lot of the details together: spacing of members, placement of wheels, required suspension clearance underneath the deck, etc... Brian was great to work with, very reasonably priced, a stand-up businessman & all-around good guy. He did a great job building this trailer. He was extremely helpful right up until I drove the trailer off his yard, and I'm sure that he will be a big help in the future, too, with any metal fabrication needs that come up for me.

The specs of the trailer are as follows:
Length: 19'-6"
Width: 8'-1"
Ball height: 16"
Deck Height: 22"
Axles: (2) @ 71" long
Unladen weight: 875 lb
Weight capacity (GVW): 4400 lb (1100 lb per tire x 4)


This is the drawing that I provided for Brian.

The finished road height of the overall structure will be around 13'-0", under the 13'-5" road height maximum.

It is a deck-over trailer; that is, the wheels are entirely underneath the deck, so there is no need for fenders to be built into the house. In fact, the whole double-axle undercarriage is easily removable: remove 6 bolts and it's free. I will salvage 4 jacks from the junkyard, one for each corner, so the whole structure may be lifted, the undercarriage removed, and the house dropped on 4 sono-tube footings, so the house is temporarily permanent (or is that permanently temporary?)

It was exciting to see the first full-size manifestation of my house. I stood on the empty trailer, and got an idea of what it will be like to stand in my tiny house.

I picked the trailer and hauled it to Bennington VT, where I dropped it off in the yard of my former employer, Vermont Timber Frames and Timberline Panel Company.

The manufacturing process of Timberline SIPs is a hydraulic press which creates 8'x24' Structural Insulated Panel. The large size of the SIPs helps speed installation of large surfaces such as industrial roofs. For smaller applications, however, such as SIP or timber frame homes, the 8'x24' panel can be difficult to use efficiently. Sometimes large pieces are cut off and left unused. They often re-sell these to consumers who are building smaller buildings at a discount rate. As a former employee of Timberline, I have been given the benefit of being able to use them to build my house, and thus save them from sitting in the yard as waste. So I will be hauling away enough to build my house with! Thank you Timberline!