Wind River Tiny Homes International? Wind River Tiny Homes exported a tiny house to Japan. We named it the Pacific Drift. It disembarked at the Yokohama Port in fine condition. As you probably already know, tiny houses are huge in Japan. Our client wanted to make a splash by importing a MADE-IN-USA tiny house. We are now proud to call ourselves an exporter. Not sure if we tipped the scales on the trade deficit but we are trying to do our part!

The Pacific Drift is a fully finished tiny house shell. Our customer will finish it out with appliances, fixtures, and cabinets. The shell features a Galvalume Tuff-Rib metal roof, cedar shake accents in the shed dormers, and Mi vinyl windows.
In the USA we have highway safety rules governing size requirements for traveling over-the-road as well as weight limits that require a commercial driver’s license. In Japan they have the same rules but everything is smaller and lighter. We had the trailer custom made for the Pacific Drift. It’s narrower than the typical trailer as well as sporting lower profile wheels and tires. The width at the widest point is 8′ 1.75″. In the USA the standard maximum height is 13′ 6″, we built the Pacific Drift to 12′ 2.5″. To make the house lighter we used structural LP SmartSide panels in the board and batten style to save on sheathing weight.
Some other custom features for this Pacific traveler are its specially designed running lights and signal lights. Turn signals in Japan are orange, not red. We put a removable transparent red tape over the orange lights to turn them red and make the house street legal while on it’s way to the exporter in California. Also, the wiring harness for the trailer had to be modified. In Japan their signals and brake lights function differently. They use what’s called a 13 pin wiring harness while in the USA we use a 7 pin harness. We had to learn about the 13 pin but we got it done.
Oh, and then here is the exporting and customs paperwork. That was a learning curve too. The Pacific Drift is a good example of how Wind River Tiny Homes isn’t afraid of a good challenge.