Choosing your tiny house trailer style

Choosing  between Flat Top or Protruding Wheel Guard:

One of the key decisions to make when choosing your tiny house trailer is to decide between a Flat Top style or a Protruding Wheel Guard style.

Our Flat Top (FT) trailers are all tri-axle:

Tiny House Trailer for sale tri-axle flat top

Our Protruding Wheel Guard (PWG) trailers are all tandem-axle:

Tandem axle protruding wheel guard tiny house trailer

Why is the Flat Top always a Tri-Axle and The Protruding Wheel Guard always a Tandem-Axle?

We make a Flat Top trailer by making the floor sit at the same height as the wheel guards. But of course we still want to maximise the internal height of the tiny house, so we use smaller wheel rims & tyres. Because smaller wheels have a lower load rating (ie, they can’t carry as much) we need more of them to safely reach the same carrying capacity as the Protruding Wheel Guard trailer, thus we use three axles with 6 small tyres.

On the Protruding Wheel Guard trailers, we make the lowest trailer floor possible by dropping the floor below the top of the wheels. This means that the size of the tyres can be bigger because they don’t determine the internal height available in the tiny house. So we use larger tyres with a higher load capacity and we therefore only need to use 2 axles with 4 tyres.

Which style is better?

Each style has their advantages. Both styles have all the same safety features and are ready to use Fred’s Unified Construction Method® to secure the tiny house & trailer strongly together and make it comfortable to live in all year round.

Your decision about which style to go with depends on what’s most important and fits best with your floor plan & priorities for living.

Here’s a way to help you decide…

Tiny House Trailer Style Quiz:

Questions:

Which of the following 2 statements is most important to you:

A.) I really want a centrally located door along the long side of my tiny house.

B.) I want to maximise the head height in my loft and my door need not be centrally located on my long wall.

C.) I want as much underfloor storage as possible. The more the better!

D.) I want the building of the tiny house frame to be as simple and easy as possible.

E.) I want the cheaper trailer option.

Answers:

If you shouted ‘YES!’ to answers A, C and D then the Flat Top is the style of trailer for you.

  • The Flat Top allows you the most flexible floor plan because you don’t have to build around the wheel guards.
  • The tri-axle design means that 800 litres of underfloor storage spaces comes standard with your Flat Top Trailer.
  • The building process for the walls is somewhat simpler because you don’t have to go up and around the wheel guards; its a straight shot all the way across the trailer top.

If you shouted ‘YES!’ to answers B and E then the Protruding Wheel Guard style of trailer is for you.

  • The Protruding Wheel Guard trailer allows for a lower floor than the Flat Top, with a difference of 80mm, allowing you the maximum amount of internal height for your loft-sleeping comfort. 
  • There are less materials and time involved in making the Protruding Wheel Guard style of trailer so it costs less to buy!

Ready to get your new trailer rolling?

Fill in the online form and Get a Tiny House Trailer Quote sent to you in 3 to 4 business days!

Tiny House trailer fast quote