let’s say we try make a parody of the ancient wooden railroad car - floor and frame out of metal, and wood (properly treated against water damage) used for the walls and ceiling. Which in a sense would be similar to how actual American homes are made, basically wooden walls and roof plus paint, rubber and other anti-water protection.
It would seem that that is not how they actually make these trailers. Wikipedia seems to mention aluminium walls although it makes no effort at comparison of various materials on the market and their pros and cons.
So what would be wrong with this picture? Would wooden walls be actually more expensive on a mobile home? (even though they clearly are cheap enough for a regular home). Are there other reasons why they would suck? Or are there in fact such trailers out there?
They used to make them that way. I borrowed a positively ancient (okay, I think it was built in the '40s) camper last summer that was essentially a wooden box on wheels. It was nice and sturdy, with no water problems that I noticed.
Sucker was heavy, though. It was small, but killed the gas mileage and left deep ruts in the field where it sat for 4 days, even though it was properly blocked and leveled. Our aluminum and fiberglass '80s era camper is about the same weight, and much larger.
They wouldn’t get cheaper. Wood is expensive, and much heavier, increasing shipping costs. Wood doesn’t work well with mass production techniques (wood that would provide better weather resistance). Wood also burns more readily than metal. The manufacturer will need a lot more insurance.
I’d rather have any home made of wood and stone than metal or artificial products though.
BTW: The amount of real wood in newly built non-mobile homes is decreasing rapidly.
I think it has more to do with the quality of the construction than the materials themselves. See for example Airstreams, which are obviously all-aluminum, but are very well constructed and hold up quite well.
Also, nobody is really selling new versions of the aluminum-sided single- and doublewide trailers you see in the stereotypical run-down trailer park. Those boxes represent sort of an evolutionary step between the time when people actually were living in functional travel trailers and modern modular homes. Those were mostly made in the late-50’s through 80’s and, though they’re ostensibly mobile, it’s not like you could hitch one up to the pickup and run it up to the lake. The flimsy construction was a function of them being cheap and still having to be somewhat mobile.
The modular home has replaced these now. These are pre-fabbed and can be placed on a location, but don’t have wheels or anything like that. At the lower end, their building materials and quality aren’t too much different from the old aluminum rectangles of yore (although they’re more likely to be plywood than aluminum), but there’s also higher end versions that are built with materials (including wood) that aren’t too different than what you’d build a regular old house out of.
are you saying that yes, right now there are lots of “modular homes” made of an aluminium frame and plywood for the walls? Or is plywood only an internal surface of the fully aluminium wall?
ETA: would a “real” house get a whole lot cheaper if it is made out of prefabricated steel sheet boxes with plywood inside? After all, as we seem to have established upthread, making walls out of aluminium seems to be cheaper than of wood, whereas making them of steel ought to be even cheaper still.
Not sure about the prices, but steel homes are increasing in popularity. I think construction costs go down. The interior wouldn’t be plywood though. If you don’t want steel, it would probably be drywall on metal studs. Some of these are nothing but prefab quonset type structures, others get very fancy, using all sorts of shapes. Like most home construction, a lot more time can be spent in the finishing than building the main structure.
Old ones were made of wood and they rotted out and had lots of mold problems. Go into an older one and there will be someplace where the floor has rotted out and is springy or completely broken out under a rug. I saw one with wood siding that all the siding was rotted and sloughing off. Getting rid of wood as a structural component improves a mobile home.
when figuring out how strong the mobile home is supposed to be structurally, what are the main sources of stress to be considered? Is the main stress from the outside weather, like wind? Or from vibration during transport from one trailer park to the other? Or from people leaning against the wall from the inside?
Of course it would be cheaper. How much more would a car cost if they shipped the parts to your house and assembled them in your driveway? Stick built homes are the least efficient way to build them.
ping. So does anybody know/care about structural integrity requirements for small trailers? I.e. the sort of thing that can be transported without disassembly either on its own wheels or else on a single big truck/platform.