Dear Suzy,
I’ve been planning to beat the high cost of apartment rent by buying an old
travel trailer and moving into one of the cheaper mobile home parks outside of
town. After seeing what poor condition most used travel trailers are in, I’ve
decided to build one myself. What are the proper building codes to follow for
such a trailer? I’d feel rather silly if I spent a lot of time and money
building a solid, energy-efficient trailer, only to find that the codes
“require” plastic toilet tanks and soggy particle board floors. Since there is
no telling which city a trailer may end up in, I assume that there is a
universal code that is applicable across the nation. It’s not going to be that
easy, is it? — John U.
Dear John,
You’re not the same John U. I went to high school with, are you? If so, you
should know nothing is easy, a lesson you surely learned in the school
cafeteria where Randy Wendt would smash you in the face with a slice of cream
pie at least once a week. (Hey, in a town the size of Bellville you create your
own excitement.)
If you’re not the same John U., it still isn’t going to be easy. If you plan
on parking your trailer in a mobile home park, you are flat out of luck. I
couldn’t find one in the yellow pages that will except a homemade trailer. In
fact, many of them are so high-tone these days — preferring to be called
“manufactured housing parks” — they have minimum size requirements, trailer
age restrictions, cement ponds for swimming, paved streets, and rules out the
wazoo. You might as well try to build a tree house in Westlake.
Bob Peters at Pecan Plantation Home Park thinks you’re fooling yourself and
suggests you take a look at the new manufactured homes that are constructed
from 2×4 studs and 2×8 floor joists, plywood, drywall and all those sorts of
regular building materials. This is quite a transformation from the early 1970s
when my family lived in a trailer house while we waited two miserable years for
our real house to be built. It was made of compressed teddy bear fur and tin
foil. If you didn’t cover your mouth when you coughed, you could easily blow a
wall out.
Trailer parks, home to more truly mobile homes, like campers and RVs, are less
restrictive, but few still allow home mades. A lady at the Hudson Bend Camper
Resort says the trouble with owner-built trailers is they seldom have the right
plumbing and electrical fittings for hook up. Plus, some are “ugly as sin.”
Mike Higgenbothem at Crestview RV Park will accept any trailer that’s
self-contained although he says he’s “never seen a homemade travel trailer
that’s traveled more than 30 feet before falling apart.” (Don’t tell this to my
husband, who jaunted around California in the late 1960s dispensing biscuits
and lemonade at rock concerts from the back of his little home-built Scone
Wagon.)
Oddly enough, no one wants to claim authorship of a book detailing building
codes for these kinds of trailers. However, you will have to deal with the
Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT). Darlene, a customer assistant at
TxDOT, said your trailer will need to be inspected, assigned a VIN number,
weighed, and you’ll need to show proof of ownership — which boils down to all
your receipts for materials if you build it from scratch.
It gets so complicated it almost makes you want to smash yourself in the face
with a cream pie, huh?
This article appears in August 2 • 1996 and August 2 • 1996 (Cover).