Mad about Science: Mobile homes

By Brenden Bobby
Reader Columnist

I am currently in the midst of a laborious demolition project on my property. My grandfather built the house in which I currently live while himself living out of a mobile home. Now the mobile needs to go, but it is in such bad shape that there is only one way out: through thousands of pieces.

This experience has given me a lot of perspective on how a home is constructed and deconstructed. Weeks of swinging the sledgehammer have also given me a body like Jason Momoa, so that’s a plus.

Seems like a perfect opportunity to write an article for the 7B community.

Depending on how you define it, mobile homes have been around for at least 6,000 years. Nomads throughout Asia spent thousands of years moving from place to place carrying all their possessions with them. This meant that early Copper Age mobile housing needed to be lightweight and easy to carry by hand, horse or beast of burden.

The yurts of central Kazakhstan are a prime example of millennia-old mobile homes. They were built with collapsible wooden walls around a central wooden ring, with the intention of folding down and transporting easily, like a camping tent. They were covered in felt from sheep’s wool and designed to repel high winds on the steppes.

Yurts have evolved in recent years, modernizing to appeal to those interested in tiny home living. Offering about 25 square feet, the yurt of 2026 is designed with origami in mind by having triangular panels that fold down into an object that can be easily packed up in a truck and hauled to a new location. They also offer solar panels and transportable water reservoirs that allow users to wash dishes and power lights.

The tipi is the most recognizable mobile home, especially in the Pacific Northwest. The tipi dates to at least 7500 B.C.E., as archaeologists have found stone rings used to weigh down the exterior coverings. These structures were often constructed using three to four lodgepole pine cores to make the central conical structure, while using up to 20 smaller cores as framing. The exterior was initially made from stitched buffalo hides, but later made of lightweight and durable canvas. Interior liners were hung during the winter months to create a dead air space that acted as insulation and prevented drafts.

Mobile homes, as we recognize them, first appeared in 1926 and were closer to camper trailers equipped with a hitch to be towed behind trucks and vans. These early models didn’t have plumbing, as most people used them as a vacation home and would drag them from place to place, presumably where they could easily access water and toilets.

Mobile housing began in the wake of World War II. Returning soldiers were met with a housing shortage and a highly mobile economy. It made sense for families at the time to hitch their home to their vehicle and drag it to where the work was, which also led to the development of trailer parks.

The development of the interstate highways beginning in 1956 further highlighted the benefits of owning a mobile home, as moving from place to place became much easier. The 1960s brought cheap appliances and a demand for larger houses, which led to the proliferation of single-wide and double-wide manufactured houses. Single-wide trailers were up to 18 feet wide and between 52 and 80 feet long. As the moniker implies, double-wides were double that width while remaining the same length. They were manufactured separately and joined on-site. In order to move the double-wide, they’d have to be taken apart to fit back on the highway.

Even though the construction of manufactured homes was standardized by the National Manufactured Home Construction and Safety Act in 1976, these homes were often very cheaply constructed for ease of transport and to appeal to low-cost buyers. This led to rapid degradation by the 1980s and ’90s and the cultural stigma of “trailer trash,” often portrayed in media as generational families stuck in a cycle of poverty.

Despite this stigma, production of manufactured homes blossomed throughout the 1990s, with up to 250,000 homes manufactured per year. That number has since fallen to around 103,000 in 2023. A real estate boom throughout the COVID-19 years led to widespread mobility throughout the United States, but the looming economic challenges in the wake of the pandemic have increased the demand for manufactured homes. 

Tiny homes have a similar appeal to manufactured homes, offering low overhead costs and optimized space for budgeted living, though the number of tiny homes produced is far lower than that of traditional mobile homes — roughly 5,000 tiny homes per year.

Another new type of “mobile” home has made its mark on the real estate market since the pandemic. Container homes, built around shipping containers that are 20 to 40 feet long and eight feet wide are purchased and stacked to create a modular home. These shipping containers are cut and welded, then timber framed to create a livable home that mirrors a modern angular architectural style. These homes are not easily transported, but they do keep several tons of metal from rusting in fields.

Stay curious, 7B.