How to Tow a Tiny House Simply & Safely

How to towing a tiny house

It is so great to live in a little house that has wheels to move to wherever you want. However, pulling a house is never easy. It needs so many stuff and a quite complex process. So what do you need and how to towing a tiny house safely? Let read the answers below.

What you need to prepare towing a house

1. The truck

how to towing a tiny house
Photo by Rocky Mountain Tiny Houses

The first thing you need for the question “how to towing your tiny house” is a truck. It must be strong enough to tow your house. If you want to travel around, you should buy one. If you just want to move to another place in your city, you can hire towing company to do it for you.

If you are going to buy a truck, you should know the information about the vehicle to make sure that it can tow your house:

  • Specs: The most crucial element of a truck is towing capacity. It means how much weight the truck can tow. And to make sure that you will not buy the wrong truck, consider the truck has towing capacity more than 15000 pounds.
  • Truck’s condition: You need to take a truck with a good condition. I am sure that you don’t want your truck stop suddenly because of engine problems while it is towing your house. So, if you are buying the used truck, you should check the distance the truck’s done, cooling systems, and brakes.
  • Fuel: You should know that a diesel truck has better pulling power than the gas trucks. However, buying a truck using diesel or gas depends on where you will stay or the route you travel.
  • Legality: this is so necessary for your truck. You need a truck that should be licensed, titled and allowed to tow a house. If you don’t want to get trouble with authorities, don’t try to drive a truck without permission.

2. The Tiny House

Tumbleweed Tiny House Roanoke
Tumbleweed Tiny House Roanoke

Of course, you need a tiny house to tow. But you need to consider these things before starting to move your house:

  • Weight: The house weight includes dry weight, belongings weight. If the total weight of the house exceeds the truck capacity, you should remove some things unnecessarily.
  • Condition: Don’t forget to check everything in your house and make sure that they cannot be broken or blow your house such as gas, light, etc.
  • Permit: Normally, a tiny house doesn’t need a license because they are all built for staying on the road. However, there are some states require tiny house permit. So before you moving your house, you still need to check its length, height, width, and weight. If these specifications don’t fit, you need a license for your house before towing it.
  • Insurance: Insurance always stands at no.1 on your list. It not only protects your truck and a tiny house but also protects the other people and their stuff.

3. The Trailer

Tumbleweed Tiny House Trailer
Photo by Tumbleweed

Your truck cannot tow a house itself. It needs more things to connect the house and the truck. After attaching the house to the truck, the truck cannot run as fast as it does alone. And the time it runs on a road will be longer. So you also need a trailer brake controller. This controller will help you to drive the truck easier.

When you buy a truck, you need to check that it has a trailer hitch or not. And then, check the trailer how much weight it can suffer.

How to Tow a Tiny House Safely

Towing a tiny house is not simple and easy. So how to towing a tiny house safely and simply? The answer is that you need to have a plan and try to minimize everything as much as possible. This minimization step will help you to remove stress and trouble on the road.

  • The route: you know, there are so many obstacles on the road such as traffic jam, bridges, phone lines, potholes, low-hanging branches, etc. Don’t be a fool by going these ways; it will take you more time to move.

So you need to have a route for your house and a backup route prepared also. And don’t forget to ask people or search the parking space on the road or the place you are going to stay.

  • Hitching up: Watch this video, it will show you how to attach your travel trailer or your tiny house to a bumper hitch. In this video, Andrew Odom uses a sway bar, safety chains, stabilizer bars, and electric brake system:

Cost for Towing a Tiny House in a Month

If you are going to travel around with your tiny house, you need to have a finance plan for food, for maintenance, etc. And this is the fee I used in the last time I travel around America. You can see mine and make your own.

  • Fuel $725. We use gas for the truck, and it takes this amount of money each month to have the capacity to go on roads.
  • Maintenance for the truck $295. I know the number is too high. But I have to change some things in the truck if I don’t want to stop and go back. I hope this amount of money will go down next time.
  • Maintenance for trailer $55. Many problems happen on the road, so we have to spend a little bit each month for this maintenance.
  • Insurance $95. I am a careful person. So I think $95 per month is acceptable because I don’t want to risk my life and my partner’s.
  • The Internet $130. I am a freelancer, the faster Internet is, the more money I earn from that.
  • Campground fee $239. This fee is from $10 to $60 each night. It depends on where you park your house.

Total cost for a month is about $1539. All these numbers are average. So the cost depends on how you spend and what your need. You totally can pay more if you have enough money, or you can minimize your budget to have a longer trip.

I know many people who own a tiny house or going to make one. And they don’t know how to move it safely and easily. However, if you research everything to know how to towing a tiny house, you will never get a headache with towing it.

1 thought on “How to Tow a Tiny House Simply & Safely”

  1. Nick

    Your information about how to towing a tiny house safely and simply?You share a good answer and useful information.I really like it. Keep it up admin

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