In this video based post you’re going to learn the basics of how to floor and frame a Tumbleweed tiny house on a trailer.
In this video they are building the Fencl tiny house using a 18′ trailer.
The design is 130 square feet without including the upstairs sleeping loft and the tiny front porch area.
Designed by Jay Shafer, founder of Tumbleweed Houses, the plans are available for you to purchase and download right now if you wanted.
You can use them to follow and build yourself for $23,000 or less, or you can hire a contractor to follow the plans instead.
Alternatively Tumbleweed offers a variety of other plans that might better suit your needs. You can check those out right here.
Either way, this video is going to show you the basics of flooring and framing a tiny house on wheels.
Photo Credit Tumbleweed Houses/YouTube
The steps outlined below are assuming that you have already decided on a design (either your own or set of plans) and are therefore ready to buy a trailer.
How to Floor and Frame a Tumbleweed Tiny House on a Trailer
Step 1. Buy your trailer, materials, and order your windows
Step 2. Remove any vertical pieces from the trailer (except wheel wells) so you have room to floor and frame traditionally
Step 3. Remove decking then leave 20″-24″ of gaps in-between
Step 4. Install aluminum flashing to protect from water and rodents (if you have a porch, don’t do this there because you don’t want water to just sit there when it rains, it needs to go through)
Step 5. Start your floor framing. Front and back first then fill gap. Use screws instead of nails.
Step 6. Insulate!
These step by step instructions were written with what I learned from Jay Shafer’s the Small House Book and by attending their workshops. Both of which I highly recommend if, like me, you were new to construction or the idea of building on tiny and/or on wheels.
His book covers the rest of the step by step details for framing your walls, roofing, installing a housewrap, windows, and much more. If you want the rest of the step by step instructions plus a bunch of other useful information and color photos, click here to place your order for ‘the Small House Book’ by Jay Shafer safe and securely through Tumbleweed’s website.
Video on Flooring and Framing on a Trailer thanks to Tumbleweed Houses
Andrew Odom Instructs and Demonstrates how to Frame for a Tiny Home on Wheels
You can always consider attending one of Tumbleweed’s tiny house workshops throughout the country to learn more about building and to meet some other really cool people who also like smaller homes because of the freedom they offer.
For a list of this years Tumbleweed workshops click here. If you want to download this year’s tiny house workshop catalog click here (it’s free).
If you enjoyed this post on how to floor and frame a Tumbleweed tiny house on wheels, “Like” and share using the buttons below and then- if you want- talk about it in the comments below. Thanks!
Alex
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If you park your house on a lot, how do you connect to water? Do I need to get in touch with a plummer and have a cement slab laid down to kind of make this a semi permanent home location. I live in northern WI. so this will have to work in the winter time too. Coooold weather proof. Thank you for your time and help. I have no idea about this end of the plumbing.
In the high Sierras of California I worked for my father in a home maintenance business, the way we usually handled the plumbing was to have the water main come up out of the ground under the house. The main had a hole about 1-1/2 feet in diameter and 2 or 3 deep (depending on the depth of the frost line in the area) in the ground around the pipe. The pipe was then wrapped with an electric plumbing heat tape from the bottom of the hole all the way up to where the pipe entered the house, and if possible a foot or so into the house if the pipe is accessible. The pipe was then wrapped with insulation and the hole in the ground was filled with fiberglass insulation. The main water valve was at the bottom of the hole and had a square steel rod that extended up to ground level that could be turned with a wrench. Most houses had a skirting around the foundation or at least a 2′ wood box that had a door built around the water main from ground level up to where it entered the house to keep the wind and snow out.