Ten foot wide tiny house - there is way more to it than just an extra 20% of living space. It’s important to do your research, and listening to Jay’s advice is a great place to start. You will easily realize that extra 1.5’ makes a BIG difference, but you definitely want a pro to help.

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ThinHaus makes ten foot wide tiny houses. We do this because the extra foot and a half is literally ... huge! It allows the wheel wells to disappear from the living space and the stairs to the master loft to be placed next to the bathroom keeping them out of the main living area. We create a den large enough to actually watch a big screen TV or play video games without being overwhelmed. Going ten feet wide makes a big difference.

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The cost to add nearly 20% more space is probably something around five percent. So, you ask, if you get some much more space for so little extra, why doesn’t everyone do this? Why isn’t 10’ the standard in our industry?

The answer is that traveling on America’s highways with a 10’ wide trailer is so much more complex that most tiny house makers can’t even begin to contemplate how to do it. They simply have no idea how to get a 10’ wide tiny house from place to place, not to mention how to get a 10’ trailer to their building site in the first place. Or they tried to do it once and found that it is so much more expensive and complicated to do legally that they decided not to ever do it again.

Some will say, “Hey, it’s easy! All you need is a permit that you can get on-line and you’re good to go.” It turns out these folks are not only wrong, but they are insanely wrong. Yes, you need a permit ... but once you start to apply for it, you begin to find out that you need about dozen other things that cost upwards of $50,000 and take six months or more to get. To travel legally with a 10’ tiny house is crazy expensive to do right ... and to do it illegally is ten times crazy expensive if you get stopped.

So, transporting a single 10’ wide tiny house is too expensive ... but transporting more than one or many, might work if you spread the cost over more units. That’s what tiny house transportation companies do (and manufacturers like ThinHaus). But still, the cost is huge. A single trip from our build center in Phoenix to the fairgrounds in San Diego is over $2,000 each way! This is why a 10’ tiny house is so special. As long as you don’t move it all that often or have professionals do it when needed (make sure they are licensed to tow an oversize load), it’s a manageable and predictable expense.

But, if you are still hell bent on doing this yourself, let us give you some idea what you are really up against moving a 10’ wide tiny house (or a ThinHaus) yourself.

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You’re gonna need a truck. At the very least, you’ll want an F250. A better answer is the dual rear wheels of a Ram3500. Do not try this with a gasoline engine. You will burn out the transmission on the first real climb. You will need a diesel engine and Allison transmission ... figure $9,100 extra for that.

That was the easy part. Now, someone has to drive it. Let’s assume that they have some experience with this and already own the required signs and safety gear ($500). Driving a 10’ wide trailer means you are going with an oversized load. This means permits ... and permits means USDOT registration (free) ... which means UCR registration and maybe even IFTA licensing ($500) ... which means DOT medical registration ($200) ... which means commercial insurance ($25,000) ... which means drivers investigation and licensing ($350)... which means log maintenance ($100) ... which means vehicle maintenance logs and driver’s time logs ($100) ... which means you have just become a commercial truck driver even though you are only towing a tiny house. Oh, and by the way, you can’t take this= on city streets without a permit, so in theory, you will need a separate permit for each city ($150 per jurisdiction per trip) you travel through to get on or off the highway. Some counties also require permits, so that just adds to the fun. We haven’t even talked about towing a 13.5’ tall trailer around, but that’s a thing, too. It really costs something around $50,000 per year to move a 10’ wide tiny house. Do it once and you’re crazy (or broke ... or both). Spread this over 20 units or more and it’s not so bad.

Towing an 8.5’ tiny house requires none of this. You just go ahead and do it. And now you see why no one wants anything to do with a 10’ wide tiny house ... and those who do recognize that this is not for running around the countryside. You move it once (maybe twice) in its lifetime and that’s it.

We’re not saying that a ThinHaus is not moveable. We’re just saying that you will want to let us move it for you (the first 500 miles are free with your new ThinHaus) or hire a professional towing company to do it. It’s not hard to do, but you need to budget for it. Figure $5/mi and you’ll be pretty close to right on. That way it will be done right (legally), insured properly and handled by someone who has done this before. You’ll have enough to keep you busy once it arrives, so let the pros do the moving for you.

For more data and building details concerning the ThinHaus Model A2410~Onyx, email to: engineering@thinhaus.com and we’ll share the specifications and techniques that we use to build our industry leading ThinHaus.

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Definitely not the simple towing experience you imagined. But living in a 10’ wide tiny home makes living all the easier. You really have to decide what is most important to you. Mobility, or livability?

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On the road again,

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