Building a custom ultralight trailer - Part II - What’s been done already?

In Part I of this series of posts, I explained the motivation for building a custom ultralight trailer and its basic requirements. As a reminder, it needs to be 1500 lbs (or preferably less), with an interior bed/dinette conversion, shower, toilet, and (very) basic kitchen, and tall enough to stand up in. It should be able to handle about three days without resupply.

In this post, I will talk about understanding what’s already been done by people already, because reinventing the wheel is dumb.

We (my husband, DrBohr, and I, CherenkovBlue) initially had no real idea of how we wanted to execute this trailer, only a vision of what we wanted to achieve. So we started by educating ourselves voraciously on what people had already done. There are several good resources, including the Teardrops and Tiny Trailers subreddit, the www.tnttt.com forum, and books on the topic. These forums are incredibly helpful for finding information about construction techniques from DIYers. Many people there are building teardrop or squaredrop trailers, in which the trailer consists of a living space with a bed inside (and really, only a bed and some cabinets), and a fairly extensive kitchen that opens to the outside world on the backside of the trailer.

Teardrop trailers are quite light, but not what DrBohr and I are exactly interested in (rats, we can’t just adopt a blueprint…). What we’re after is a place to sleep and shower in at the trailhead, with the ability to boil water for coffee and rehydrated meals. Teardrop trailers typically do not contain toilets or showers and are not tall enough to stand up in. They are often constructed out of 4’x8’ sheets of material, with one sheet per side wall, to give a sense of the size. The kitchens also tend to be overkill for the purposes of DrBohr and I, and their back hatch tends to be a source of water ingress when it rains.

There are multiple vendors of teardrop and tiny trailers, including TAG and Scamp (and many others). TAG trailers are very similar to what DrBohr and I would like to build, so their layouts and interior solutions are a very useful point of reference. Many people also mod their TAG trailers, providing some great hacks for personalizing the living space and improving utility. Scamp manufactures fiberglass trailers and almost hit our weight limit for their smallest trailer, but not quite. These trailers are tall enough to stand up in and do include showers, toilets, beds, and kitchens. However, they tend to be slightly (or more than slightly) over-featured, such as including televisions and microwaves, that DrBohr and I are not interested in, which also increases the weight.

Campervan conversions are a rich source of information and work with many of the same limitations that this trailer will have. Being a full living space in a regular vehicle rather than a large-engine, tow-specialized vehicle, weight and dimensions are a key concern. Because campervan conversions frequently include showers and electrical systems, many online resources are available discussing plumbing and wiring. They also include interior kitchens and bed-to-dining area conversions to maximize utilization of interior space, which is in line with our trailer needs as well.

In Part III of this series, I will discuss Lightweighting Strategies, or Challenging Your Assumptions.