Choosing the Width of your Tiny House Trailer
How wide can you build my tiny house trailer?
We can make a tiny house trailer to any width you desire, up to the legal registrable limit in Australia of 2.5m.
We limit ourselves to this width because there are common & substantial negative consequences for you as the purchaser of a tiny house trailer if you build wider than what Australian road rules allow for road registered caravans.
We want your tiny house project to be a success from designing to building, transporting and living in it. We believe that success begins with you gathering information about the potential negative consequence of a tiny house that exceeds the road rules for registrability and then assess for yourself if that’s for you.
Some of the negative consequences have to do with:
- Safety & Legal Liability if there is a road accident (i.e. 3m wide tiny house is more likely to exceed the weight rating of the trailer);
- Vulnerability to your council choosing to class your tiny house as something other than a caravan (i.e. as a building).
Current case law suggests you are in the strongest possible position with a council’s building and planning departments when your tiny house vehicle is unequivocally classed as a caravan and that means designing it so it is able to be registered as a caravan.
And so for the time being, whilst tiny house vehicle living is so new and not fully sanctioned, we believe it is safer for transport and prudent when dealing with council to stay within the legal height, weight and width limitations for a registrable caravan in Australia, but ultimately it’s your choice and you need to weigh up the risks.
For more information on assessing this for yourself we’ve written a handy article, called “How Big Can I Make My Tiny House?.
We offer 3 standard width options for your tiny house trailer – A, B & C – which seems to meet the floor plan priorities of many tiny house builders.
The trailer width dimension is also your “outside of stud measurement”. This is the distance from the outside of one stud wall to the outside of the opposite stud wall using Fred’s Unified Construction Method®.
Here’s a way to help you decide:
Tiny House Trailer Width-Choosing Questionnaire:
Which of the following 3 statements is the best fit for you:
A – “I want to maximise the internal width of my tiny house and I do not want a transportable verandah awning.”
B – “I want to maximise the total liveable space for indoors & outdoor and would like two verandah awnings on both sides of the house.”
C – “I would like one transportable verandah awning and as much internal space as I can possibly get.”
And the corresponding trailer widths are:
Option A corresponds to a trailer width and outside of stud measurement of 2400mm, yielding an internal dimension of 2236mm.
Option B corresponds to a trailer width an outside of stud measurement of 2266mm, yielding an internal dimension of 2102mm to 2127mm (depending if you have wall mounted solar panels) plus covered verandah awning areas of 4000mm (x2 2000mm Verandah Awnings North & South).
Option C corresponds to a trailer width and outside of stud measurement of 2340mm, yielding an internal dimension of 2176mm plus a covered verandah awning area of 2000mm. Option C is a hybrid option we’ve developed which uses an asymmetrical trailer design to provide the builder with one verandah awning on the north-side while also coming within 60mm of Option A, the option that maximises internal space.
Some builders ask, “Can I get Option A and build awnings later or have the awnings travel separately from the tiny house? The answer is you absolutely can do that, and we can help you design your tiny house with non-transportable awnings.
Just be aware that going back to get your verandah awnings & flashings will likely increase your overall transport cost for moving your tiny house and could be a bit inconvenient.
Start by getting your tiny house trailer quote here:
Fill in this form to get a Tiny House Trailer Quote.
