How to Prepare Your Mobile Home for Transport (Step-by-Step Checklist)

You signed the paperwork, the new lot is graded, and now your entire home is supposed to roll down the road in one piece. You walk through the rooms and the questions stack up fast. What gets shut off first? Does the skirting travel with it? Will the cabinets and dishes survive the trip? Standing inside a house you actually live in and wondering how it even moves is a strange feeling, and almost everyone we meet feels it the week before a move.



Here is the part that matters most. The drive itself is rarely where moves go wrong. The trouble almost always traces back to a step skipped on the ground, before the truck ever backs up to the hitch. A loose tie down, a live gas line, a soft driveway, a box left sitting on a counter. After preparing hundreds of these in the field, we can tell you the homes that travel clean are the ones where the prep was done in the right order. This checklist walks you through that order so nothing gets missed.

Start With the Utilities

Shut down and disconnect every utility before anything else happens. Power, water, sewer, gas or propane, and any low voltage lines all need to be off and physically separated from the home. Most homes need 2 to 3 days of lead time here, because the power company and the propane supplier set the schedule, not you.

Work in a fixed sequence. Kill the electrical at the main breaker and have the meter pulled. Close the propane tank valve, then have the tank disconnected and the lines capped. Shut the main water valve, drain the lines so nothing freezes or sloshes, and disconnect the sewer hose at the cleanout. In Maine, draining matters more than people think. Water left in a supply line during a cold weather move freezes, splits the pipe, and you find out at the new lot when nothing works.

Pull the Skirting and Free the Home

The skirting almost never travels with the home, so plan to remove it completely. Vinyl and metal panels are held by a top rail and a bottom track, and each panel pulls free by hand once you release a corner. Stack them flat and label them by side if you intend to reuse them, because warped or cracked panels rarely seat right the second time.



With the skirting off, the underbelly is exposed and the real work begins. Every anchor strap and tie down has to come loose from the ground anchors. The home has to be lifted off its piers and blocks and lowered onto the running gear, which means the axles, tires, and hitch all get reinstalled or inspected. Old units that have sat for 15 or 20 years often have seized anchors and rotted blocking, and that is normal. We expect it and bring the gear to deal with it.

Secure Everything Inside

Treat the inside of the home like it is about to be driven over gravel and frost heaves, because it is. Anything that can shift, fall, or swing will try to. Empty the upper cabinets entirely, since latches pop open on rough back roads and a falling stack of plates does real damage on the way down.



Box up dishes, glass, electronics, and anything breakable, and set the boxes on the floor where nothing can tip. Tape every cabinet and closet door shut, and tape the refrigerator and oven doors as well. Remove wall art, mirrors, and anything hanging. Roll up loose rugs. For longer or older homes, interior bracing across the ceiling helps hold the structure square through the flex of the trip. The goal is simple. When the home rocks, nothing inside moves on its own.

Time the Move Around Maine Weather

Maine sets the calendar more than most owners expect. The two windows that cause the most grief are deep winter and spring thaw. In January and February, ice builds on the chassis and frozen ground is fine to drive on but brutal to set anchors into. During April and early May, frost coming out of the ground turns back roads soft and unstable, and a heavy home can break through a surface that looked solid.



The cleanest windows are usually late spring into summer and early fall, when the ground is firm and dry and the days are long enough to finish a setup in one go. If your move falls outside those windows, the prep does not change, but the path and ground conditions need a much closer look. A wet or frozen approach is something we plan around rather than fight through.