We’ve been thinking a long time about how we wanted to secure our tiny house to the metal frame of the trailer. We’ve been searching the internet to see what other tiny house builders have done to secure it. There are several different ways to secure your tiny house to the trailer.
The first option is to use metal brackets. These brackets are placed around the lumber of the floor and the metal beams of the trailer. The advantage of this is that the trailer stays intact. Also, this way the tiny house can be registered as cargo by the RDW (Dutch institution that organizes and registers motorized vehicles) because then the tiny house can be removed from the trailer. On the contrary, with the trailer we’re using this means that the floor is no longer flush.
Another option is to secure the tiny house using bolts which go through the wooden frame of the floor and the metal frame of the trailer. We’ve chosen for this option because the bolts are easily sunk into the wood. This seems to be the most frequently used option in the Netherlands. Of course, we inquired at the RDW and the manufacturer of the trailer whether this is a wise option, and whether it is actually allowed. The conclusion was that it is allowed. However, the minimum distance between the holes has to be 60 centimeters and the diameter of the holes cannot be bigger than 1 centimeter.
In total we’ve used 10 bolts to secure our tiny house: one in the middel of each end of the trailer, two in front of the wheel arches on the right side, two in front of the wheel arches on the left side, two behind the wheel archers on the right side, and two behind the wheel arches on the lefts side. First we drilled a shallow hole with a diameter of 2 centimeters so the head of the bolt would sink into the wooden beam. Then we drilled a hole in the middle until we reached the metal frame using a wood drill with a diameter of 8 milimeters. When we had finished drilling all the holes in the wooden frame, we moved this frame aside a little to make space to be able to drill through the metal frame. We used a metal drill with a diameter of 8 milimeters for this. After that we placed the wooden frame back and locked all the bolts in place. The bolts we used are 14 centimeters long and 8 milimeters wide.
Our tiny house is now firmly attached to the trailer. We are very pleased with the result. If you also want to secure your tiny house this way, it is wise to check with your manufacturer whether it is possible to drill into the metal frame without weakening the trailer. For us it was the right sollution.
