What Vehicles Can Tow a Tiny House

If you own a tiny house, then you are to keep several essential rules and steps in mind. A lot of queries come into our mind when the issue is- towing a tiny house. 

That is, how to tow a tiny house, which vehicles are needed to do this job, what else we need to tow our tiny house, etc. Even, is it safe to tow your tiny house in the road? 

There are plenty of things to know about what vehicles can tow a tiny house. In this 

article, we will let you know everything you in detail. Just keep reading until the end of the post.

Preparation before Towing your Tiny House

Before towing up your tiny house, you have to get the right equipment and procedures to do this job properly. 

Tow Vehicle for Tiny House

In order to tow a tiny home, the first and most important thing you’ll need is a tow vehicle. According to your requirements, you should buy the perfect vehicle for pulling your small house.      

To buy a vehicle, you should take many things in consdieration. Let’s take a sharp look at the table below.

Vehicle	Engine	Towing Capacity
F-150	3.5L V6	5100 lbs.
F-150	3.5L V6 TC	11,700lbs

Now, let us know what vehicles are able to tow your tiny house fluently.    

Can a Jeep Tow Your Tiny House?

Yes, you can tow your tiny house with a Jeep. Still, it depends on the car model and all-inclusive construction.

Jeeps are very popular among Americans. Jeeps have achieved popularity as a great manufacturer of off-road vehicles. Now, they come with SUVs and pickups.

However, the most asked question for you is, can a jeep tow a tiny house? 

The Jeep Grand Cherokee- Diesel includes a 3.0-liter V6 engine coming with oozes 237 horsepower as well as 550 Newton-meter of torque.

This off-roading SUV comes with a 7,400-lbs of towing capacity. You can use this for the 16-feet long tiny houses. If it is fitted with a towing package, there will be a couple of thousand pounds of power.

At the same time, the little Jeep Wrangler is very restricted for towing capacity. You will be able to pull tiny homes with 8-feet long. 

Above all, the Wrangler’s towing capacity comes in between 2,000 to 3,500-lbs.

Jeep’s come with the compact SUV Compass. So, you can underpower to tow your tiny house with a 2,000-lbs rating. There are some other types of Jeeps like Renegade is not suggested to tow your tiny house.

Can the Subaru Outback Pull a Tiny Home?

Unluckily, the answer is no.

Subaru Outback is very popular among vehicle owners. You may become astonished that Subaru Outback can’t tow a tiny house. Unfortunately, the Subaru cars have 2.5-Liter and 3.6-Liter horizontal engines which is underpowered for towing a tiny home. These cars have around 2,700-lbs of towing capacity.

Yet, if you want to buy a towing package, then you can take it from your car dealer to boost up the pulling power of the vehicles. The cost of this appliance would be around 1,500 USD to 3,500 USD.

As a Subaru Outback owner, my suggestion is to hire a larger automobile to pull your tiny house. You will find a lot of commercial rental services available. And, you can pick most of the service providers from online.

What’s more, you should never sell your Subaru Outback just for accommodating your tiny house habits. Once you live to settle in any specific location, then you can still your vehicle for various purposes.

Can the SUV Tow Your Tiny Home?

Certainly, yes.

Earlier, the Sports Utility Vehicles, widely known as SUV that became popular in the late 90s. SUVs were formulated to let the car owners explore nature.

These vehicles offer off-roading capabilities, a bigger interior space, and a huge interior space.

Car manufacturers recommend SUVs for their enormous towing power. Therefore, you can tow your tiny house that comes with heavy utensils. The Sports Utility Vehicles are able to pull more than 3,500-lbs of weight depending on their size, and ability.

Though, all of the SUVs are not built equally. Comparatively smaller SUVs, for example, the compact utility vehicles can’t work as a heavy hauler.

So, it’s better to choose the SUVs having mid-size and full-size. Those can pull your tiny house properly.

Let’s check out some of the most exciting SUVs for towing your tiny house. Their load taking capacities are as follows:

• Ford Expedition- 9,300 Pounds
• Lincoln Navigator- 9,000 Pounds
• Chevrolet Tahoe- 8,600 Pounds
• GMC Yukon- 8,500 Pounds
• Nissan Armada- 8,500 Pounds
• Toyota Land Cruiser- 8,100 Pounds
• Toyota Sequoia- 7,400 Pounds
• Dodge Durango- 7,400 Pounds

Still, this chart is not final about the towing capacity of these vehicles. You have to keep many factors still in mind. The factors can be your car’s powertrain, transmission, axle ratio, as well as the all-around configuration. These assume a car’s towing ability.

Once you have planned to purchase an SUV to tow a tiny home, first of all, you should consult with your car dealer. Make online research to know different Information considering your car model, the specifications of it, etc.

Best Pickup Trucks to Tow a Tiny House

In the last paragraph, we have known about the Sports Utility Vehicles that can pull a tiny house well. But, as SUVs are very expensive, many tiny house owners may not be able to effort it. As the Kelly Blue Book says, the typical full-size SUV will cost you anything around 60,000 USD.

On the other hand, the normal full-size trucks tend to cost 46,500 dollars of you. There are smaller options for smaller homes as well. The smaller homes may cost near about 32,000 USD.

So, being a practical person, you should go for a truck rather than using an SUV. Pickup trucks have the versatility and come with a huge storage area as it has flatbed.

However, pickup trucks are not without their drawbacks. The trucks can seat up to five persons,  on the other hand, the SUVs have seven seats.

Now, we are listing some of the best pickup trucks considering their pulling capability:

• Ford F150 – 13,2000 Pounds
• RAM 1500- 12,750 Pounds
• GMC Sierra 1500- 12,500 Pounds
• Chevrolet Silverado 1500- 12,500 Pounds
• Toyota Tundra- 10,200 Pounds
• Nissan Titan- 9.600 Pounds
• GMC Canyon- 7,700 Pounds
• Chevrolet Colorado- 7,700 Pounds
• Toyota Tacoma- 6,800 Pounds
• Nissan Frontier- 6,720 Pounds
• Honda Ridgeline- 5,000 Pounds

We’ve taken the following data from the 2019 releases. The above truck should be capable enough for towing your tiny house.

Choosing the Right Vehicle for Your Towing Requirements 

If you only need to tow a 3,000-lbs small house, then you may not need to use a full-size truck or SUV. If you use bigger vehicles, they will consume more fuel.

In addition, the bigger vehicles are comparatively costly than the smaller compact trucks. And, you can pull any tiny house below 10-feet with a smaller compact truck.

So, you should choose a perfect vehicle that comes with the proper towing ability to pull the load of your tiny house. Here, we are now classifying the vehicles considering their amount of weight they are able to tow:

1. Light-to-Medium Duty Vehicles 

Light-to-Medium Duty vehicles are able to pull up to 3,500-lbs. In fact, these are appropriate for tiny houses with a single axle. The compact SUVs and pickups are a common example of light-to-medium-duties.

A Chrysler Pacifica is a great example of this type. 

2. Medium-to-Heavy Duty Vehicles

This type of vehicle is able to pull up to 5,000-lbs of a load. Besides, medium-to-heavy duty vehicles are tremendous for tiny houses with large or double axles. To give an example, the Honda Ridgeline pickup truck is a handy 

medium-to-heavy duty vehicle.

3. Extra Heavy Duty Vehicles

Especially, the commercial trucks work for towing large trailers. Still, you will find some passenger vehicles that are able to tow up to 10,000-lbs of a load. For instance, the Toyota Tundra falls into this category of extra heavy-duty vehicles. 

4. Super Heavy Duty Vehicles

Provided that, your tiny house includes many floors and an extent of 20-feet or more, then you have to use this category of vehicle. 

Super Heavy Duty vehicles are widely used by the professional drifter so that they can pull higher than 10,000 pounds of load. To give an instance, the Ford F-150 is one of the most popular cars for using in super heavy duty.

Vehicle Rental Services for Tiny House

However, you may not want to purchase a vehicle precisely for pulling your tiny home. In this case, you can simply get this job done from the rental service.

You will get several truck rental services available. They will tow your tiny home to your wished place. Most importantly, these rental services will cost much lower than the cost of purchasing a vehicle of your own for this purpose.

Vehicle rental service providers normally maintain several matrix to haul tiny houses. In general, they charge 50 USD to 125 USD for a five to ten-mile haul.

In addition to this, you will have to expend a 75 USD hook up fee. Plus, they will charge another 2-4 US dollars per mile. Provided that, you need to shift your tiny house locally, then a towing agency can commit this type of work.

Moreover, shipping companies have towing services as well. Their charge is almost in a similar range as the local towing corporations. 

On average, the cost of towing a tiny house is, If you are going to pull for 100 miles. The amount would be about $325-$450.

How to Know whether a Vehicle can Tow Your Tiny House or not?

Manually Calculating the Load of Your Tiny House

In order to tow up your tiny house with a vehicle, first of all, you have to determine the total weight of the house.

Apart from the broad building, you have to calculate the things that are inside your home.

Accordingly, you need to take into account the following things while nibbling the dry load. You should measure: 

• Measure the weight of the furniture. For example, tables, chairs, and beds. 
• The cumulative weight of all your equipment
• The load of the aspects installed in your houses like an AC, heater, or anything else.
• An overall amount of all the liquids inside incorporating the liquids in your septic tank. 
• The collective load of the occupants

After estimating all these weights, you will be able to know the estimated load of your tiny house.

At the same time, as you’re planning to create a tiny house yourself, you have to ensure all the load of the equipment in your home.

Is It a Legal Process to Pull your Tiny Home?

The rule is that a tiny house can not have an area more than 13.5 feet high by 8.5 feet wide. If your tiny house crosses the legal size, then it will be illegal to tow your small house.

In addition to these specifications, the towing vehicle must need a license, turn signals, as well as running tail lights. Plus, the overall towing configuration needs to be road-worthy and safe as well. In this way, your towing vehicle will not be a reason to endanger other autos.

Therefore, a vehicle has to be able to safely pull your tiny home over a considerable duration.

If all these criteria are maintained, it will be totally legal to tow your tiny home.

What Else We Require for Towing a Tiny House?

If your vehicle hasn’t a complete towing package available, then you would require some other things to tow your house:

• Hitch
• Coupler
• Ball Mount
• Pin and Clip
• Wiring Harnes
• Brake and Lights Connection

Is a Special License Needed to Pull a Tiny House?

In most states of the United States, tiny houses are recognized as a recreational vehicle. Particularly when a tiny house sits on a trailer.

That is to say, you won’t require a commercial driver’s license (CDL) to ride a trailer if it is not the collective load of the vehicle that pulling more than 26,000 pounds.

On the other hand, in Canada, they expect a Class A driver’s license for towing any tiny house which contains 9920 pounds or above.

Let’s Wrap Up!

As we mentioned, you have a lot of options in hand to pull your tiny home. You can pick up a particular vehicle according to the requirements of your tiny house. Thus, you should have already known all about what vehicles can tow a tiny house.

In fact, it is a true fact that the larger weight your tiny home has, the larger your vehicle has to be. 

Relevant Resources:

1. How Long Does a Tiny House Last
2. The Most Popular Tiny House Air Conditioning Systems
3. What Is the Cost of Living In a Tiny House