Three reasons to stay away from Slide-Outs!

We frequently get requests to build tiny house shells with a slide-out.  Slide-outs add some critical square footage to such a small living space, so we understand the desire!

Here are three things to think about before deciding if you want a slide-out, or not!

Water penetration into your Tiny Home

No matter what you do, you can’t avoid that you’re creating a place in your Tiny Home to allow water to penetrate into your home! If the wind is just right, or the slope of the slide-out isn’t done properly, there’s a very good chance that you’re going to get water penetration into your home. You don’t want this!

You can’t keep them insulated

There is a chance you can find a builder who will make sure that your slide-out is well insulated. But the gap between the slide-out and the exterior wall of your tiny home is a place where you will lose a ton of insulating value. This can mean you’re spending a lot more money in electricity or fuel to heat or cool your tiny home!

Having an extremely well-insulated slide-out also means that it might be very heavy. This can lead to reliability issues with your slide-out mechanisms

Yet another thing to break

We can tell you from personal experience that RV slide-out mechanisms aren’t super reliable. Not only that, but they aren’t cheap to repair or replace. Depending on how your home is finished and built with a slide-out, it might even be nearly impossible!


Do you have any experience with RV-style slide-outs?

What are your thoughts on having a Tiny home with a Slide-Out?

Share with us your thoughts!