The weight includes the frame/chassis of the structure/trailer. mobile home could weigh approximately 40,000 lbs. per square foot, while newer manufactured homes weigh anywhere from 45 to 50 lbs. Weight of the mobile home – According to Free Mobile Home Info, older mobile homes typically weigh between 35 to 40 lbs. The mirrors also enable the operator to better navigate narrow roads and obstacles such as signs, mailboxes, trees, and other automobiles. This increases safety for public road situations. Toters have mirrors that can extend (manually, by electrically, or hydraulically) to enable the operator to see beyond the unit. Home section widths range from eight to eighteen feet. Toters are required to have extending mirrors. Others look and operate like over-the-road semi-trailer tractors with longer wheelbases and sleeper cabs. Some toters are highly adapted for purposes of delivering or removing mobile homes to smaller home sites. The toter is a tractor unit specifically designed for the modular and manufactured housing industries. Toters are equipped with a 2-5/16" diameter ball that couples with the tow hitch on the tongue of a mobile or manufactured home or the removable transport frame of a modular home. The key difference between the two is in the method of coupling. The toter is often confused or mistaken for a semi-trailer tractor. The ball-and-hitch is a more fitting design for the height demands of the housing industry considering that the hitch is at the level of the bottom of the towed unit. Some Toters are hybrids, with both a fifth wheel and a ball hitch. Others look and operate like over-the-road semi-trailer tractors with a longer wheelbase and a sleeper cab. Some toters are highly adapted for purposes of delivering or removing mobile homes on smaller home sites. Unlike typical tractor-trailer rigs, mobile and manufactured homes are towed using a more-or-less traditional ball hitch, and the tractor is called a Toter, or Mobile Home Toter-a tractor unit specifically designed for the modular and manufactured housing industries. So, from the truck driver’s point of view, what issues are involved in transporting large, oversized mobile homes or large manufactured housing units? Equipmentįirst, this is a very specialized service-beginning with a specialized towing unit, the toter. With modern manufactured housing, a single home may be made up of two or three separate towable units, that can be combined at the home site to create a finished home that is comparable in quality and size to many contractor-built homes. With manufactured home units, the “trailer” is actually the foundation for the structure, and once delivered the trailer assembly is mounted on concrete blocks or pillars-the house’s foundation, and the entire wheel and axle assemblies are removed and returned to the manufacturing facilities to be reused. The first challenge is that, unlike most trucking tasks, manufactured housing transport requires transporting structures that were not intended to move on highways on trailer assemblies that are temporary and designed more to support the structure and less about being optimized for highway use.Īlso, deliveries are not to terminals or businesses with loading docks and forklifts, but to vacant dirt or grass lots, sometimes with limited maneuvering room. Still, hauling the units involves the same considerations.Įither way, as the driver towing a prefabricated home, you are transporting a family’s major investment and your service and professionalism will be a major part of the homeowners’ experience. There are two distinctly different towing assignments associated with manufactured housing: (1) delivering a new unit to a customer’s site, and (2) picking up and relocating an existing unit from one location and moving it to another. The fact is, moving a “manufactured housing” unit can be major undertaking. And once you deliver the unit, you leave most of the “trailer” behind. Towing manufactured housing is a trucking specialty unlike most-almost all assignments are oversized-both in width and length, and occasionally in height.
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