Styles Of Tiny House Trailers
There are a few main categories of Tiny House Trailers:
- Bumper Pull Hitch
- A Gooseneck
- 5th Wheel Hitch
The main difference between a Gooseneck / 5th Wheel trailer and a bumper pull trailer is the way they attach to a vehicle.
- A bumper pull trailer attaches to a vehicle by way of a ball hitch on the back bumper of a truck or tow vehicle. The common size of this ball hitch comes in 2 5/16th” for tiny house trailers.
- A Gooseneck trailer has a long “neck” That resembles a goose that reaches up and over the back of the tailgate of a truck and slides over a ball hitch that is in the bed of the truck.
- A 5th Wheel hitch will have the same trailer shape as a gooseneck although the attachment to the tow vehicle will vary. The difference is a gooseneck trailer slides over a ball hitch in the bed of a pickup truck, while a fifth wheel trailer attaches to a pickup truck using a hinged plate hitch; the same type of hitch is used by semi trucks. The biggest advantage of a gooseneck & 5th Wheel trailer over a bumper pull is its stability. for the purpose of this article we will just refer to Bumper Pull & Gooseneck. a 5th Wheel hitch is available for tiny house trailer although rarely ordered. The 5th Wheel feature is approx. $200 over the Gooseneck hitch)
Gooseneck Trailers will also allow you to have a buildable deck on the gooseneck hitch while a Bumper Pull trailer does not allow that. A bumper pull trailer has a triangular shaped hitch to allow it to follow the truck that it is towing without running into the bumper or “jack-knifing”. A Gooseneck will also have a Triangular shape hitch that is under the buildable deck but since it arches over the tailgate of the truck there is no risk of contacting the bumper. The Gooseneck has a have a square buildable deck on top of the hitch. the risk now is the upper deck possibly hitting the cab of the truck if you do not have enough clearance between the deck on the hitch and the truck. If you do not have sufficient space, you should in limit your turn radius or consider using a hitch extender like THIS or THIS. to give more room. A gooseneck trailer will give you more livable space but it will come at a price.
The Gooseneck option starts around $2,600 and adds a 8ft hitch as well as a 8ft long deck on top of that hitch. If we compare that extra 8ft of living space to just making a bumper pull longer by 8ft. At a additional length cost of approx. $150 per linear foot for a bumper pull, there is a premium of approximately $800 more by choosing the gooseneck hitch option. If cost is a factor in your decision between trailers, then a bumper pull might be best for you.