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Trailersteading: How to Find, Buy, Retrofit, and Live Large in a Mobile Home
All the advantages of a tiny house at a fraction of the cost!
Imagine what you could do with your time if you didn't have to spend $16,000 a year on rent or a mortgage. Old single-wide mobile homes can often be found for free (and installed for a couple of thousand dollars) in rural areas, so trailersteading is akin to dumpster-diving. A trailer allows you to live without debt, to keep your ecological footprint to a minimum with energy bills at or below the national average, and even to blend right in alongside traditional-house dwellers after a few years.
Trailersteading profiles thirteen mobile-home dwellers who have used trailers as a stepping stone toward achieving their dreams. Some have spent the cash saved to expedite renovations involving extra insulation, pitched roofs, classy interiors, and even basements, while the found money has allowed others to go off the grid. Many also took advantage of a low-cost housing option to pursue their passions, becoming full-time homemakers or homesteaders.
In addition to the case studies, this book presents easy methods of minimizing the negative sides of trailer life and accentuating the positive. For example, did you know a single-wide is easy to retrofit for passive solar heating? That a simple plant-covered trellis can break up the blockiness of the trailer's external appearance? Learn which parts of installing and upgrading your trailer are easy for a DIYer and which parts should be left to the experts, along with how to cheaply heat and cool a mobile home.
Imagine what you could do with your time if you didn't have to spend $16,000 a year on rent or a mortgage. Old single-wide mobile homes can often be found for free (and installed for a couple of thousand dollars) in rural areas, so trailersteading is akin to dumpster-diving. A trailer allows you to live without debt, to keep your ecological footprint to a minimum with energy bills at or below the national average, and even to blend right in alongside traditional-house dwellers after a few years.
Trailersteading profiles thirteen mobile-home dwellers who have used trailers as a stepping stone toward achieving their dreams. Some have spent the cash saved to expedite renovations involving extra insulation, pitched roofs, classy interiors, and even basements, while the found money has allowed others to go off the grid. Many also took advantage of a low-cost housing option to pursue their passions, becoming full-time homemakers or homesteaders.
In addition to the case studies, this book presents easy methods of minimizing the negative sides of trailer life and accentuating the positive. For example, did you know a single-wide is easy to retrofit for passive solar heating? That a simple plant-covered trellis can break up the blockiness of the trailer's external appearance? Learn which parts of installing and upgrading your trailer are easy for a DIYer and which parts should be left to the experts, along with how to cheaply heat and cool a mobile home.
- GenresNonfiction
208 pages, Paperback
First published February 2, 2016
About the author
Anna Hess
52 books110 followersAnna Hess dreamed about moving back to the land ever since her parents dragged her off their family farm at the age of eight. She worked as a field biologist and nonprofit organizer before acquiring fifty-eight acres and a husband, then quit her job to homestead full time. She admits that real farm life involves a lot more hard work than her childhood memories entailed, but the reality is much more fulfilling and she loves pigging out on sun-warmed strawberries and experimenting with no-till gardening, mushroom propagation, and chicken pasturing.
She also enjoys writing about the adventures, both on her blog at WaldenEffect.org, and in her books. Her first paperback, The Weekend Homesteader, helped thousands of homesteaders-to-be find ways to fit their dreams into the hours leftover from a full-time job. The Naturally Bug-Free garden, which suggests permaculture techniques of controlling pest invertebrates in the vegetable garden, is due out in spring 2015 from Skyhorse Publishing. In addition, a heaping handful of ebooks serve a similar purpose.
(As a side note, I use Goodreads more as a personal way of keeping track of the books I read than as a way to share the books I write. If you're here to learn about me as an author, check out my gardening-homesteading shelf and ignore all the fluff. You can also drop by www.wetknee.com for my authorial musings.)
She also enjoys writing about the adventures, both on her blog at WaldenEffect.org, and in her books. Her first paperback, The Weekend Homesteader, helped thousands of homesteaders-to-be find ways to fit their dreams into the hours leftover from a full-time job. The Naturally Bug-Free garden, which suggests permaculture techniques of controlling pest invertebrates in the vegetable garden, is due out in spring 2015 from Skyhorse Publishing. In addition, a heaping handful of ebooks serve a similar purpose.
(As a side note, I use Goodreads more as a personal way of keeping track of the books I read than as a way to share the books I write. If you're here to learn about me as an author, check out my gardening-homesteading shelf and ignore all the fluff. You can also drop by www.wetknee.com for my authorial musings.)
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
December 16, 2024
What I learned from this book is that it is perfectly acceptable to live in a trailer as long as you are okay with chemical off-gas, poor insulation, frequent renovations and electrical problems, oh and your family might hate you.
But you’ll save money! If you happen to already own a 58 acre farm.
Don’t get me wrong, this book was a good read. Hess was diligent in recording not just hers, but others’ experiences ‘trailersteading.’ She included a lot of good information and while it was interesting, this book just did not sell me on a trailer, the only positive being that this would have been a good financial decision, again if I had already purchased farmland prior to 2016.
Otherwise, I felt that Hess only highlighted what a poor investment this is in today’s economy.
But you’ll save money! If you happen to already own a 58 acre farm.
Don’t get me wrong, this book was a good read. Hess was diligent in recording not just hers, but others’ experiences ‘trailersteading.’ She included a lot of good information and while it was interesting, this book just did not sell me on a trailer, the only positive being that this would have been a good financial decision, again if I had already purchased farmland prior to 2016.
Otherwise, I felt that Hess only highlighted what a poor investment this is in today’s economy.
Did Not Finish
May 8, 2022DNF at 30%
While there is nothing wrong with the book, it is not relevant to me. I was dreaming of a simple life, but I am not the sort who has the tenacity to retrofit a trailer to make it serve as a warm and comfortable home.
While there is nothing wrong with the book, it is not relevant to me. I was dreaming of a simple life, but I am not the sort who has the tenacity to retrofit a trailer to make it serve as a warm and comfortable home.
February 9, 2017
This was an interesting read with some informative aspects. I didn't agree with the author on some of her perspective but do appreciate books that encourage debt free living and disconnecting ourselves from the unhealthy American cultural standards our country has become so engaged in.
Read
April 21, 2016I loved this book! E..ven though I do not own my own little piece of paradise and my mobile home is in a "trailer park"...... I bought a gem of an older mobile home, already updated and cheap! My lot is on a back corner with sufficient yard and personal space. This book embodies my goal of living inexpensively and that to me, time is more important than money..
March 11, 2016
Loved the individual stories. This book is very inspiring.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews