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What Are Equipment Trailers and When Do I Need One?

Jun 22, 2021||Daniel Thompson

If you need a spoon and someone hands you a hammer, it wouldn’t be that helpful. Sure, you could get some soup in your mouth if you were really fast, but, man, if you just had a spoon. Well, having the right trailer for a job is similar. Hauling miscellaneous junk to the county dump might be best served in one type of trailer, hauling sand in another type, hauling a family heirloom in another type. Boats, cars, lumber, mulch, concrete blocks, tools, clothes, whatever – these are all better handled by certain types of trailers. Today let’s talk about equipment trailers.

So what are equipment trailers?

An equipment trailer has a flat bed, no sides, and a loading feature of some type, usually either a tilt function or ramps. They are designed so that moving pieces can drive on and off of them easily. Hauling loose items is not preferred here since there are no sides to contain the small bits, like dirt or rock or pool noodles. (Sorry, that was the first thing that came to mind).

Equipment trailers is a diverse category with several main types. Here are some that Affordable Trailers carries:

  • Small tilt deck trailers like our TOPHAT 12X80-SAET 12 foot trailer with a GVWR (Gross Vehicle Weight Rating) of 6,000 lbs.
  • Medium-sized trailers like our TOPHAT 83X18-EC with 18 feet in length and a GVWR of 10,000 lbs. with 5-foot ramps
  • Medium-sized trailers like our TOPHAT 16X83-EH-14K that is 16 feet long and has a GVWR of 14,000 lbs and 5-foot, spring assisted ramps
  • Large Gooseneck trailers like our TOPHAT 20+5X102 GN 159 that has 20 feet on the bed and another 5 feet for the goose neck, a GVWR of 15,900 lbs., and jumbo ramps
  •  Large Gooseneck trailers like our TOPHAT GN-240 25+5 that has a bed of 25 feet and a 5 foot neck, a 24,000 lbs. GVWR, and jumbo ramps

There are a myriad of variations on equipment trailers, but these are some of the most common. The variations may also be called by different names, like flatbed trailers or utility trailers. People may or may not use the terms correctly, but that’s okay. The founding fathers set up this country so that silly people have free speech, too, and if Jefferson didn’t bother to delineate trailer names, who are we to point out the errors in terminology? The variations will also extend to specific uses where you’ll have names like skid steer trailers, bike trailers, landscaping trailers, and so on, all the way up to hay wagons and some large enough to handle even the heaviest of items like earth movers and LeBron James’s ego.

What we really want you to come away with is to know that there are trailers for almost anything – asphalt, hardware, crafts, cars, tractors, pool noodles, sculpting clay, boxes of cereal, sarcasm, brush, librarians, back hoes, gasoline canisters, Milky Way Ice Cream, and anything else you can think of. Equipment trailers are just one type in a broad family of options to meet your needs. We also want you to know that we are standing ready to help you in whatever way we can. Between our knowledge and selection, we are confident we can pair you up with the perfect trailer!

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