HELP! I'm building a custom travel trailer.
Hi everyone, My name is Darla and I’m going to be building a small custom RV later this year to travel solo full time throughout the United States. Yup, I’m doin it! I would love to share my RV ...
Forum Discussion
OP wrote:
I'm actually going for an 84" interior height. It should put me at an 11-12' total height with the A/C give or take. I should be okay. I saw some 5th wheels at a show in NJ this past weekend and some of them look like they go up 15' high.
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Be aware of your overall height when building. You mention 15', that probably is not so. If I remember max height for interstate highways is either 13 or 13' 6". Above that you will need oversize permitting, and will need careful planning of route, due to bridge clearance. Remember too that many bridges on two lane highways are lower ( sometimes much lower ) and other places you may want to go will have limited vertical clearance.
As for building a trailer higher than standard, the last Wells Cargo I bought, I had custom built with an extra foot of height ( and a dropped axle to lower the floor height ). At that time, they simply priced their added height in 6 inch increments.
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OP wrote:
Well, it sounds like you are where I was a few years back....dreaming of the possibilities and not getting any younger. But, won't the horses need a ride then?
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My comment about using the 33' gooseneck trailer as a base was simply meant as an option to consider a base to build from. In my case if I were to use something like that for an RV build, it would be strictly as an RV, not dual use as RV and horse transport. We have other horse trailers as well.
One of the problems of using something like a horse or cargo trailer as an RV build is lack of clearance under for plumbing.
When I camp, I sometimes go into boondock areas where I need a fair bit of ground clearance, so I bought an RV that is fairly high off the ground.
Other thoughts I will comment on is gas mileage. It sounds like you are very well funded for this project since you mention a hundred grand build and tow vehicle budget. So that's good and it sounds like you know fuel costs are going to be high. Fuel mileage is mostly effected by driving speed and wind speed, not length of trailer. Since you are building very high ( and very square ) I would expect you will see 6 to 10 mpg out of a 3/4 ton gasser. Fair enough, gassers burn more fuel that diesels, but diesel costs more per gallon and more upfront and maint costs.
I look forward to watching your build. There is another thread here on the forum of a guy building a RV on a flatbed truck. If you have not seen it, you may want to check it out. Different build from yours, but surely there is a lot of crossover:
http://www.rv.net/forum/index.cfm/fuseaction/thread/tid/26735683/srt/pa/pging/1/page/1
EDIT, also there are several "adventure RV" forums. If you have not read up on those, you might check them out. Those build outs have figured out mostly what does and does not work. Lots of good info on solar and other off grid survivability issues.
Further thought, I just looked up a 16' Wells Cargo, and it looks like it has a 7.7K pound GW. Just over 5K cargo capacity. Be very careful in your weight calculations when doing your engineering design work so you know how much you are going to weigh. I would suspect that to make something like this "full time" useable, you could easily eat up that entire 5K pound capacity. A whole lot easier and better to do the engineering calculations up front than to find out part way through the actual build that you are going to be overweight. When having a trailer built ( custom ) you may be able to spec higher load axles/wheels/brakes/tires.
As to the security issues of living in something that looks like a cargo trailer vs RV, I suspect it's a toss up. First of all, it's only going to take about 10 minutes of observation for a bad guy to figure out someone is living in this thing. And second, even if they did think it is "just a cargo trailer", bad guys break into those all the time to steal tools or cargo. Ask any contractor about that problem.
Better to think proactively about security from a personal standpoint, but that's best another discussion for another time, and probably better done on a forum other than this one. Those topics tend to go off track and end badly around here in about six posts.
I'm actually going for an 84" interior height. It should put me at an 11-12' total height with the A/C give or take. I should be okay. I saw some 5th wheels at a show in NJ this past weekend and some of them look like they go up 15' high.
====================
Be aware of your overall height when building. You mention 15', that probably is not so. If I remember max height for interstate highways is either 13 or 13' 6". Above that you will need oversize permitting, and will need careful planning of route, due to bridge clearance. Remember too that many bridges on two lane highways are lower ( sometimes much lower ) and other places you may want to go will have limited vertical clearance.
As for building a trailer higher than standard, the last Wells Cargo I bought, I had custom built with an extra foot of height ( and a dropped axle to lower the floor height ). At that time, they simply priced their added height in 6 inch increments.
===================
OP wrote:
Well, it sounds like you are where I was a few years back....dreaming of the possibilities and not getting any younger. But, won't the horses need a ride then?
==========
My comment about using the 33' gooseneck trailer as a base was simply meant as an option to consider a base to build from. In my case if I were to use something like that for an RV build, it would be strictly as an RV, not dual use as RV and horse transport. We have other horse trailers as well.
One of the problems of using something like a horse or cargo trailer as an RV build is lack of clearance under for plumbing.
When I camp, I sometimes go into boondock areas where I need a fair bit of ground clearance, so I bought an RV that is fairly high off the ground.
Other thoughts I will comment on is gas mileage. It sounds like you are very well funded for this project since you mention a hundred grand build and tow vehicle budget. So that's good and it sounds like you know fuel costs are going to be high. Fuel mileage is mostly effected by driving speed and wind speed, not length of trailer. Since you are building very high ( and very square ) I would expect you will see 6 to 10 mpg out of a 3/4 ton gasser. Fair enough, gassers burn more fuel that diesels, but diesel costs more per gallon and more upfront and maint costs.
I look forward to watching your build. There is another thread here on the forum of a guy building a RV on a flatbed truck. If you have not seen it, you may want to check it out. Different build from yours, but surely there is a lot of crossover:
http://www.rv.net/forum/index.cfm/fuseaction/thread/tid/26735683/srt/pa/pging/1/page/1
EDIT, also there are several "adventure RV" forums. If you have not read up on those, you might check them out. Those build outs have figured out mostly what does and does not work. Lots of good info on solar and other off grid survivability issues.
Further thought, I just looked up a 16' Wells Cargo, and it looks like it has a 7.7K pound GW. Just over 5K cargo capacity. Be very careful in your weight calculations when doing your engineering design work so you know how much you are going to weigh. I would suspect that to make something like this "full time" useable, you could easily eat up that entire 5K pound capacity. A whole lot easier and better to do the engineering calculations up front than to find out part way through the actual build that you are going to be overweight. When having a trailer built ( custom ) you may be able to spec higher load axles/wheels/brakes/tires.
As to the security issues of living in something that looks like a cargo trailer vs RV, I suspect it's a toss up. First of all, it's only going to take about 10 minutes of observation for a bad guy to figure out someone is living in this thing. And second, even if they did think it is "just a cargo trailer", bad guys break into those all the time to steal tools or cargo. Ask any contractor about that problem.
Better to think proactively about security from a personal standpoint, but that's best another discussion for another time, and probably better done on a forum other than this one. Those topics tend to go off track and end badly around here in about six posts.
