Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

Since I've been learning so much about axles lately I realized that the down angle spec will determine how high off the ground these things end up. So I got to thinking...
How far off the ground do most of your rigs end up, especially at the mattress height? Too low and you have to almost crawl in, and to high and you sit funny putting your shoes on in the morning! This could be an important consideration.

Geoff

Mine is high. How high I don't know and I'm not going out in this down pour to measure it, but it is high enough that I have a 1' high stool for my wife to get out. I don't need it because I am 6'6". But I still have to lean out and pick up my shoes before I sit up and put them on.... Most of the places I camp are off road spots that is why I went with the high ground clearance.....
Good luck on you build!!!!

Aha! I'm the same size as you! And the rain has not gotten here yet from where you are but I can tell it's on the way real soon.
So when it stops raining please do me a favor and measure your "seat" height. How tall is the wife? Mine is 5'6" and I don't want to make it difficult for her.

Dont forget the wheel diameter plays a roll as well. I tow with a fair sized truck (Toyota Tundra) and my hitch is at 21" off the ground. Having a low tear at the typical 10-12 inches wouls require a pretty good drop on the ball mount. As it stands, I went with 205-75D15 tires on 15x5 trailer rims and 10 deg down on a #9 torflex axle. This puts my frame at aprox 14-15"

How high is the bed in your bedroom? Ours is almost 24".

So if you design the teardrop so your mattress is almost 24" high, that would be a good starting point.

The other thing to consider is your towball, how high is it?

Mike...

My frame is 22" off the ground, the bottom of the door is about 27" up. I do run a 31" tyre though and I need the clearance where I drive the Jeep

Cheers
Steve

The interior floor of my tear is 20" off the ground.
There's about 15.5" clearance under the frame.

Mine has about 12" clearance.

With the thin "pan" and a 7" mattress, it is about chair high. Very comfortable to sit in the doorway.

dave

Frame height was 17" have 3/4 floor with 2 layers 3/4 foam and 1/2 " osb for the finished sub floor. That's a fuzz under 20" and a standard queen mattress I guess to be 6" thick. It's a bit high to set in the doorway but very easy to enter. We sleep feet forward head at the galley wall so a short crawl to the sleeping position.



sleepy side of the galley wall

How much time do you really spend sitting in the doorway?

Much more important to me would be fuel mileage so I like the thing sitting as low as is absolutely possible, so that the trailer is in the wind shadow of the tow vehicle which in my case is a compact car . . . . anything that sticks up above the roof of the car really affects gas mileage

Thoe who tow with pickup trucks might not be as concerned since they get lousy gas mileage anyway and towing doesn't make it that much worse, but for those of us with 30+ MPG cars, a tall poorly designed, heavy, wide trailer can knock 5 or 6 MPG off that number

Don't forget that teardrops originated because folks were looking for something low, light and narrow which could be pulled by a family car of modest horsepower . . . . a teardrop behind a full sized pickup truck still has me shaking my head everytime I see one . . . . though in this country of cheap gas many, many folks use pickups for daily drivers, so when they buy or build a trailer it's just natural I guess to tow them with the trucks

Hitch height shouldn't be a determining feature when deciding on trailer height though - Get your trailer riding at the height you choose and then you can set up the hitch at the correct height for the trailer, no matter what height that happens to be

Don

[quote="Alphacarina"]How much time do you really spend sitting in the doorway?

My wife is mid stage Alzheimers and she sits in the doorway a fair amount. What this means is that my tear is lower than most, just about 5' to the top. Still a bit taller than my Cavalier coupe.

Were I to build again, I would look at going 4 1/2 wide, and maybe even drop the height a bit.

dave

Shoeman.....my seat height is 27"...and my wife is 5'3"....with a 12" stool she has no problem getting in or out. She does not really need it but it makes life easier on her.

kirkman wrote:Shoeman.....my seat height is 27"...and my wife is 5'3"....with a 12" stool she has no problem getting in or out

So a little lower would have actually been better for you too?

Don

So a little lower would have actually been better for you too?

Don...No not really I wanted mine high for the ground clearance. I camp in a lot of rough fields and go down some bad canyon roads when I go white water kayaking.

That would be the one case which would make me want something other than the least possible ground clearance I could get - If I was intending to go offroad. Even then, if you use a conventionally sprung axle, your true ground clearance is only going to be half the diameter of your tires, because that's where your axle will reside. For off-road useage, a torsion axle is just about a must

Actually, you really have to try hard to get it as close to the ground as you can . . . . it's not easy, as additional ground clearance has a way of creeping in on you every chance it can find - You start out hoping you can get the chassis less than 12 inches off the ground, but despite your best intentions, next thing you know it's at 15 inches or more . . . .

Don