And now, a short rant.
When inspecting the trailer, I noticed the side marker/turn-signal lights were a bit of a distance from the chassis, so I measured them. 8′-8″ lens to lens. Okay… but I thought to be street legal non-wide-load, 8′-6″ was the limit. WTF? You’d think the professionals who designed and built the trailer would know that.
So I wrote to the subcontractor who built the trailer and they said “we built it exactly to spec” and then I asked the vendor “what about 8′-6?” and they said “yeah, it has to be 8′-6”, and we left me with the impression they were going to send parts for the mobile welder to re-work the marker lights, too.
Tonight, I had a little time and asked Google about it. Google referred me to the USDOT (https://ops.fhwa.dot.gov/freight/publications/size_regs_final_rpt/index.htm#devices) who happily pointed out that little stuff like turn signal lights are exempt from the width limit. Okay – great – the trailer is fine as-is.
But why didn’t the people who design and build trailers for a living know the rules to this level of detail when I brought it up? This is not minutia – this is fundamental stuff for the business they’re in. You make vehicles, you should know the rules as they apply to vehicles, right?
Sigh.
The good news is there is no need for the re-work of the marker/turn lights. The bad news is that competence remains a rare quality. I’m not going to go into Amazon not sending me my super-duty hold-down brackets (these attach the house to the trailer) even though they said they were in stock when I ordered them… ah, construction projects. It’s always something.
/rant.
There has been a little bit of additional activity on the trailer base since it arrived. I didn’t want ot start on the wood parts til the welding (you know, WITH FIRE) was done, but there was one thing that could move forward even while I wait. What’s that? The blessing of the house foundation, of course! What is that, you ask? You’ll have to wait til I process the next batch of pictures 😀