I built the cabin on trailer frame and pulled it to NC from VA. In the pictures, there's a screen porch attached; we'll get to that later. The frame was an old heavy duty RV frame, 8'X27', which I bought for $400. I got $100 for the scrapped aluminum and iron that I recycled, so we can call it $300. It was delivered to me as well, about an hour drive, so I felt better about the expense. First, I had to strip the frame, and then I made outriggers from another trailer frame, which I cut and had a guy weld on. I felt like I needed the outriggers because my trailer ended up being 10' wide, the frame is only 6' wide, and I thought the extra support wouldn't hurt. I am not an engineer, nor did anyone calculate the many number of factors which would safely arrange the weight, other than me making a good guess. I conferred with a weldor who had many years of trailer building experience regarding the frame design, and he agreed with my assessment. The outriggers ( will post pic when I find it) were about 20" long, tapered from 8", the full height of the frame, to 2.5" at the far end, and welded perpendicular every 2' along the length of the frame. The trailer had two 4500 lbs axles underneath, and they were equipped with electric brakes. Tires are expensive for heavy trailers, in load range D or E, around $200-300 a piece. Luckily, 2 of mine were still good, so I only had to buy 2. I guess I can spoil the ending and say I have no idea what the whole house ended up weighing. My guess, and the guess of the mobile home moving company was that it's somewhere around 12,000 lbs. Although this may have exceeded the maximum capacity of the axles, it rode well, never swayed nor did the bearings get hot on the move.
I went with 2X6 joists on 16" centers for the foundation. The subflooring is 3/4" pressed no-squeak flooring, the kind that weighs 100 pounds per sheet. Underneath of the joists, sandwiched between the frame is 7/16" plywood. I installed this to keep critters out, and to hold the plastic below the insulation in. I pulled fiberglass batts from an attic in a house that was being torn down, and reused them in the floors, so that's why they look a little ragged.Most of the dimensional lumber for the foundation was given to me by my friend Bill Sisco Of Radford, VA. He's a mason/beekeeper/builder, he brought me extra materials from jobsites, and more importantly, provided moral support.
The "foundation" is held together with 1/2" bolts running through the floor joists into the frame. I drilled through the floor, joists and frame, and ran a bolt through the assembly. I countersunk the head in the subfloor, and tied it all together, 5 on each side of the frame, for 10 attaching points total.
I should mention that there are no nails in this house, other that trim nails inside. The entire structure is glued and screwed throughout. Prior to building, I had read on a tiny house site to either glue and screw or use ring-shank nails. I didn't want to buy a nail gun for ring shank nails, so screws it was. Most of the glue was the large tubes of Liquid Nails; seemed to work just fine, and is cheaper in the giant tubes. I bought a new Milwaukee 1/2" drill for this project, and like all of their products, it performed flawlessly and vastly exceeded my expectations. I'll have that drill for a long time to come.
Bought the trailer on August 2,2010 and started building the walls in the beginning of September.
