Every journey should start with a road trip. At the end of March, I make my road trip to Salt Lake City to pick up my trailer. It's about a 14 hour drive. Third time I've been through Utah in my life. It might be my favorite state to drive. I love the openness and colorful rocky landscapes it has to offer. I'm daydreaming of nestling my built tiny house in one of the many nooks in the rocky landscapes that open to the vastness of space.
I arrive in Brigham UT, about an hour north of Salt Lake, at 2pm, only to find out that I don't have the correct size ball hitch on my truck. I need to purchase on in town, get the trailer hitched up, and I'm on my way travelling south just in time for rush hour traffic.
The trailer was purchased through Tiny Home Builders. It comes complete with everything necessary for DMV registration and has extra metal supports to withstand the weight of a tiny house. You can find all the specific at this link:
http://www.tinyhomebuilders.com/tiny-house-trailers
It's a little intense diving with an extra twenty feet dragging on my backside at first but I'm amazed how I fast I settle and get a feel of the trailer tracking and shifting lanes. I need to stop about 30 miles south of Salt Lake City to pick up an order of cedar bevel siding. It would have cost a fortune to get that material in San Diego since it would of needed milled locally. It was about half the price in Utah, big win! Cole at the Riverton Lowe's helped me order the cedar and it was ready to load when I arrived. I was soon on my way back to San Diego with a new trailer and quarter ton or so of lumber.
I ordered this trailer with drop axles. That lowers the trailer about 4-5" and allows a builder to add that space into the loft. When I arrived at my build site, the back of the trailer just cleared by about an inch and the bottom of the hitch assembly scraped on the drive way, that was with only 500 pounds of lumber on it. How the street and driveway articulated with each other caused this to happen. I had to back the trailer into the driveway, first down the grade of the street, then back up the driveway. The grade of the street and the drive way were relatively subtle, and I could see how this could be a good possibility to come across at other potential places to live. I lost a couple nights sleep thinking about this clearance issue. I decided to have a local trailer company, Carson Trailers in El Cajon, flip the drop axles to gain back the 4-5 inches of clearance. I spent an extra $200 for drop axles, then another $220 to flip them. How ridiculous, right! PERSONAL SUGGESTION #1, DON'T GET DROP AXLES! Unless you know you're going to be living on a flat, accessible lot of land that you won't move from, just go with the straight axles. I hope these photos help get my point across.
I arrive in Brigham UT, about an hour north of Salt Lake, at 2pm, only to find out that I don't have the correct size ball hitch on my truck. I need to purchase on in town, get the trailer hitched up, and I'm on my way travelling south just in time for rush hour traffic.
The trailer was purchased through Tiny Home Builders. It comes complete with everything necessary for DMV registration and has extra metal supports to withstand the weight of a tiny house. You can find all the specific at this link:
http://www.tinyhomebuilders.com/tiny-house-trailers
It's a little intense diving with an extra twenty feet dragging on my backside at first but I'm amazed how I fast I settle and get a feel of the trailer tracking and shifting lanes. I need to stop about 30 miles south of Salt Lake City to pick up an order of cedar bevel siding. It would have cost a fortune to get that material in San Diego since it would of needed milled locally. It was about half the price in Utah, big win! Cole at the Riverton Lowe's helped me order the cedar and it was ready to load when I arrived. I was soon on my way back to San Diego with a new trailer and quarter ton or so of lumber.
I ordered this trailer with drop axles. That lowers the trailer about 4-5" and allows a builder to add that space into the loft. When I arrived at my build site, the back of the trailer just cleared by about an inch and the bottom of the hitch assembly scraped on the drive way, that was with only 500 pounds of lumber on it. How the street and driveway articulated with each other caused this to happen. I had to back the trailer into the driveway, first down the grade of the street, then back up the driveway. The grade of the street and the drive way were relatively subtle, and I could see how this could be a good possibility to come across at other potential places to live. I lost a couple nights sleep thinking about this clearance issue. I decided to have a local trailer company, Carson Trailers in El Cajon, flip the drop axles to gain back the 4-5 inches of clearance. I spent an extra $200 for drop axles, then another $220 to flip them. How ridiculous, right! PERSONAL SUGGESTION #1, DON'T GET DROP AXLES! Unless you know you're going to be living on a flat, accessible lot of land that you won't move from, just go with the straight axles. I hope these photos help get my point across.
This photo is after I had the axles flipped. The articulation between street and the driveway was realitivly minor, but create the perfect storm for clearance issues. When the trailers was weighted with about 500 pounds, the hitch scraped the driveway the first time I backed it in. If it was a built tiny house, I'm not sure if I could get in this driveway.