ECN Forum Forums Photo Discussion Forums Photos for General Discussion Nothing is forever!

Reno is home to "Sun Valley," once listed in Guiness as the 'worlds' largest trailer park.' A typical mobile home will have the meter and main disconnect mounted on a pole. The PoCo will feed through a mast strapped to the pole, and the trailer will be fed from the disconnect.

This feed can be everything from a cord & plug (for the smallest trailers) to buried pipe. I'm not saying this is right; I'm just stating the way things are.

Despite the term "mobile," it is rare for these things to ever be moved once they're set up.

After a recent storm knocked down the service mast (nice fireworks there!), I was called to fix things. At that time, I also noticed the trailer feed was via SE cable, slightly buried, and too short in any event. This pic shows the exposed SE entering the trailer.

Please note that the outer PVC jacket has completely deteriorated from exposure to sun and weather:





It has since replaced with properly buried pipe, using flex for the last foot or two.

I saw a history channel special on these a while ago, and IIRC they're called "Mobile homes" because they were origionally made by the Mobile Home company in Mobile Alabama

Actually, the term "mobile home" was coined by one of the manufacturers, Elmer Frey, in like 1954. The story goes that he wanted to build trailer homes that were 10' wide instead of the then-common 8', so there could be a hallway down one side and therefore more than two private bedrooms. The problem was that his state wouldn't let him tow them down the highway, since they exceeded the width limit. He complained about this problem to someone who replied, Oh, that's no problem, get it an oversize permit as a "construction shack". Frey concluded that the problem was that they were called "trailers", and if you called them something else, the problem would be solved. A few decades later, they have been re-labeled "manufactured homes", no doubt for a similar reason.

Trailer homes began to get a bad rap during WWII, as many war workers were forced to live in them and the quality was abysmal due to wartime materials shortages. The book I read this in (my wife is sleeping in that room or I'd get it) says that one model, commissioned by the government, had a 10A fuse for everything. How much you want to bet it was wired throughout with lamp cord?