The Trailer

There are many ways to build a tiny house on wheels, but the "foundation" isn't something you want to screw up on. I could've purchased and renovated a flatbed, but I wanted to ensure it was built right to sustain a tiny house. So I hired Mini Homes of Manitoba to custom build my trailer.

They built for a me an all-steel frame with aluminum flashing on dual axles, topped with a 3/4" plywood sub-floor. It is rated for 14,000 lbs, and the trailer itself weighs about 1,500 lbs. Fingers crossed that my house stays within the weight limits!

Mini Homes of Manitoba recommended I insulate the trailer with spray foam, but I'm being very particular about the materials I'm using, wanting to ensure the lowest risk for chemicals and off-gassing.

A few years back, I had attended a sustainable building workshop in Peterborough, ON with The Endeavour Centre. Here I learned that there are many different variables when building "green" - low cost, ease of sourcing materials, ease of working with materials, embodied energy, carbon footprint, etc. Every "green" material has its pros and cons, so you need to decide which factors are most important to you. A great book that outlines various building materials and rates their "greenness" is "Making Better Buildings" by Chris Magwood. For me, indoor air quality was number one, so I'm choosing as many natural materials as possible for my build, even if they're more expensive or harder to work with.

Instead of spray foam, I chose to insulate my trailer with cellulose. Unfortunately, the company wasn't familiar with insulating with cellulose, and I wasn't happy with the insulating job, so we ended up pulling up the sub-floor, removing the damaged cellulose, and redoing it ourselves. Lesson learned!