How low can you go? (Drop floor question)

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How low can you go? (Drop floor question)

Postby DeeGee » Mon Feb 12, 2018 9:24 pm

I'm still in the wishing and planning stage, looking at building a foamie sometime soon. If I do, it would be for a temporary living situation, so I would like to be able to have the galley inside and be able to stand in that area. I'm 5'6" and my current tow vehicle is a Toyota Corolla. I was thinking of a dropped floor to minimize height. My question is, given an average trailer, how low can I drop the floor still have reasonable ground clearance?

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Re: How low can you go? (Drop floor question)

Postby Trebor English » Tue Feb 13, 2018 9:52 am

There are trailers with lifting roofs. You could have a similar dropping floor that is raised for driving and lowered while parking. It could go all the way to the ground or stay above ground to avoid ground contact.
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Re: How low can you go? (Drop floor question)

Postby John61CT » Tue Feb 13, 2018 11:27 am

Reasonable ground clearance depends on where you plan to go.

But dropping the whole chassis gives you no extra headroom inside. Lower COG and wind resistance are good things though.

Raising the roof's easier than lowering the floor.
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Re: How low can you go? (Drop floor question)

Postby DeeGee » Tue Feb 13, 2018 2:10 pm

Well, looking up the stats on my Toyota, the ground clearance of the car is 5.7 inches. With a height of 4'10". I am also looking into roof raising options, but my current design only raises the roof on the back half of the trailer. I'm looking at floor lowering in just the front bit, for the galley. Thanks for the suggestions.

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Re: How low can you go? (Drop floor question)

Postby HarryL » Tue Feb 13, 2018 4:50 pm

Our Standie has a 3 foot wide well just as you step into the trailer. When designing the trailer frame I has the same question. We happened to have a VW Jetta at the time so I measured how far it sat off the ground. The front pan was only 6" off the ground and I never had any problems with bottoming out. So, just for a safety margin I made my camper well with 8" of ground clearance. So far so good with no bottoming out issues. :applause:
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Re: How low can you go? (Drop floor question)

Postby John61CT » Tue Feb 13, 2018 8:11 pm

If you can afford to, why not just lower the whole chassis?

Also, check out how northern Ice Houses work.
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Re: How low can you go? (Drop floor question)

Postby KennethW » Sat Feb 17, 2018 2:47 pm

Trebor English wrote:There are trailers with lifting roofs. You could have a similar dropping floor that is raised for driving and lowered while parking. It could go all the way to the ground or stay above ground to avoid ground contact.
With my teardrop a use it for ice fishing. when standing in the hole at 5' 9" I just have to duck just a little. That's will the axel over the springs on a HF trailer and full 4' walls. For towablility I would go with a ground drop floor with canvas sides.

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Re: How low can you go? (Drop floor question)

Postby 2bits » Tue Mar 13, 2018 9:49 pm

My '68 Scotty has a drop floor in the middle just in front of the axle, (not in the front or rear which is important to note). I have a 6' clearance to the ground. No step stool for me and it looks cool too. I've been camping all over in it for years with never a problem.
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Re: How low can you go? (Drop floor question)

Postby Socal Tom » Wed Mar 14, 2018 10:21 am

I've considered lowering the floor as well. Its not an easy answer. I would not go lower than the axle ( and you can't lower the area within about 3 inches of the axle, assuming a standard leaf spring setup).
The other thing to consider is how for forward of the axle the area would be. The closer to the axle, the lower you can go. The issue you want to watch out for is when the TV is going uphill through a dip, and the trailer is going down hill at the same time. So a lot depends on the length of the trailer and tongue and the distance from the axle.
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