Trailer Talk
Let’s start with the start, the foundation. For a tiny house on wheels, the trailer chassis (the frame, wheels and axles) are the foundation. For this unit we went with an Al-Ko Kober Low Loader Tiny house Chassis, for a few reasons:
Low Bed Height
Its German
Lead Time, Cost & Legs
Supplier Trust
A Note on New or Second Hand
While I encourage everyone to source as many viable second hand and reclaimed materials as is feasible, for me, the foundation was the one thing I wasn’t willing to risk on this. Countless friends questioned this - would you not buy an aoul car transporter, would you not buy an aoul boat trailer, would you not just bang some steel together you soft b*ll*cks
No!
If one of my reclaimed windows shatters, I can replace it. If my door starts to let in a draft, I can fix it. If my sheathing or roofing starts to deteriorate, its on the outside, and can thus be replaced or mended. If my foundation, which the entire house is built upon, starts to rust, or deteriorate, or fall to bits, its either a nightmare or worse. That’s not to say you couldn’t get a great deal on a used trailer that could easily do the job for you, this is just the route I chose to take.
Low Bed Height
Its bed height of 471mm (or rather, its frame height which we’ll build the bed on top of) compresses to about 421mm when laden with the weight of the structure on top. The low loader has the bed in line (or just above) the axles. Standard trailers are above the wheel arches, which makes building the floor and walls a lot easier than on the low loader, where I’ll have to build over and around the wheel arches - this effort & labour trade for a lower bed height was worth it to me.
The low bed height has two advantages, a lower centre of gravity (good) and a lower overall starting height (great!).
A lower centre of gravity means our box atop our trailer (AKA my future home) is less likely to tip over/roll over into destruction (if we were crazy or foolish enough to round a corner too quickly while towing, which we’re definitely not), so although this is pretty unlikely to happen even with a higher bed height, its now even less likely.
It’ll also mean how we disperse items inside will make them less likely to go flying when we’re cornering whilst towing, although it should be noted that this tiny house is not a travelling unit - it can move, but it doesn’t want to move. The cabinetry inside and items won’t be designed akin to a camper or caravan, where everything locks shut in preparation for road vibration and transport. When moving this trailer, the more delicate possessions inside would want to packed away securely as if you were boxing them up to move house (which, I mean, technically you are!).
More usefully, a lower bed height means we have more space to play with above.
A road legal trailer in Ireland can be up to 4.6 metres tall, which is massive. The rest of Europe varies, but generally you’re best keeping to about 4 metres from the ground to allow you to travel or sell within the EU. The width restriction of 2.5m means you’ll have a very tall and narrow box if you go to 4.6M tall, and a very important rule is to err on the side of caution - go slightly under a restriction and its fine, go slightly over a restriction and… Well, you might give your tiny house a haircut while going under a bridge, and I don’t think you want that.
Utilising vertical space is important so the lower your starting point, the more head height you have to play with. An extra inch could mean an extra inch of insulation above or below, so it does all add up.
Its German - the germans are good at making things and I trust their engineering. Not being german wouldn’t put me off buying something ever, but being German definitely makes me think ‘Oh, and its German, great!’
Lead Time, Cost and Supplier Trust
The lead time from ordering the trailer to it arriving in Athlone was relatively short versus competitors, about 3 months in the end (3 Covid and recent Brexit months, so a time when the world was moving particularly slowly and international shipping was rubbish).
The cost was about 25% less than the main competitor and about on a par with any local trailer manufacturer I spoke to. It also came as standard with leg jacks, whereas these are extra anywhere else.
Al-Ko Kober have an Athlone office, and were recommended to me by the only large Irish trailer manufacturer that were bothered talking to me, Aerlite. When starting all this, I called about 10 trailer manufacturers in Ireland, once you mentioned tiny house on wheels, they generally realised you were an insane person and wanted rid of you.
Other than Ciaran, a very helpful fellow in Tuam from Aerlite trailers. We’d a few good chats about all things trailers, and once I mentioned Al-Ko Kober (he didn’t bring them up) he said they were reliable and decent and well engineered products.
That’s not to say there isn’t a trailer builder in Ireland who could beat the German product, I’d highly recommend ringing around to find one.
Competitor trailers to the Al-Ko Kober were either the aforementioned local build or the Vlemmix.
Vlemmix
Close second to the Al-Ko Kober were Vlemmix Aanhanwagens from the Nederlands. These were quite a bit more expensive, had a laden bed height of 480mm (only 60mm taller than the Al-Ko, but still) and weighed 605kg (Actually 10kg lighter than the Al-Ko). The support legs were an extra cost, and they had a huge lead time (6+ months). They were coming via an agent in the UK, they weren’t particularly good to deal with, and delivery was an extra €500+ so it just didn’t make sense vs the Al-Ko Kober.
In the states they all tend to utilise the Iron Eagle brand.
These are interesting in too many ways to get into, but their flange design and pre-drilled bolt anchors are two worth mentioning.
Iron Eagles have a massive structural flange rimming the bed of the trailer, that you can build your walls directly on top of, and within these flanges and the side members of the trailer are pre-drilled bolt anchor holes. This means you can bolt your wall and floor assembly in multiple points to the trailer chassis - I’m a huge fan of this feature and feel it makes total sense. The European competitors are missing a trick here, I’m sure they’ve a good reason (perhaps liability).
For mine, I’ve had to get brackets to tie my walls to my chassis at an extra cost of about €20 a bracket (Simpson HTT5 Strong Tie) to do what the Iron Eagle innately can.
Being American, the iron eagles are considerably heavier than the Vlemmix or Al-Ko, the 6m equivilant is 764kg, that’s nearly 25% heavier than the Al-Ko, not ideal. To be fair, if I was based in the states and building a tiny house, and I had the obligatory gnarly pickup more than capable of pulling more tonnage than my Land Cruiser, then I’d be delighted to use an Iron Eagle. They look strong as hell, have a really versatile range to suit different needs and seem like a decent company doing good work.
If I’ve missed a great Irish trailer builder or another option altogether, give me a shout at heywhatsup@smallchange.ie
All the best,
Paul