Patent Application
20080264408
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to burners, and more particularly, to decorative outdoor burners, or fire bowls, having shielded pilot burners.
2. Description of Related Art
Decorative outdoor burner devices have become a popular luxury in the United States and elsewhere. They are often used to provide heat, ambience and lighting to such locations as a patios, backyards, and porches, to name a few. Many of these outdoor burner devices include bowl-like body configurations, and are often referred to by retailers as “fire bowls” or “fire pits.”
Many of the decorative outdoor burners use wood as fuel, but gas fueled outdoor burners are also available. Gas burners can generally experience flameout problems in the face of wind or other environmental elements, and the nozzles of such decorative outdoor burners are therefore often screened from wind. For example, in many presently available gas fueled fire pits, the burner is screened from wind by providing high sidewalls around the burner nozzles, enclosing the burner in a chamber where the fire burns, or covering the burner nozzles with decorative rockery, such as a lava rocks. As such, limitations exist in the flexibility of design.
Some embodiments of the present invention include a burner assembly comprising a burner plate. The burner plate can have a top surface and there can be an internal chamber located beneath the burner plate. The burner plate can have a plurality of nozzles located thereon, with the nozzles being positioned above the internal chamber, and with each nozzle having discharge openings on the top surface of the burner plate. Gas from the internal chamber can be discharged through the plurality of nozzles.
A plurality of pilot burners positioned proximate the burner plate, can each be shielded for decorative effect, or to shield the pilot burners from environmental elements such as wind. Each of the pilot burners can be shielded within a separate canopy. The canopies can be formed from a surface of a perimeter plate. The perimeter plate can be configured to surround the burner plate, and can have a central opening in which the burner plate is disposed.
The surface of the perimeter plate and burner plate can be fully exposed, rather than shielded or screened, as the plurality of pilot burners are provided to help re-ignite a flame above the burner, even if wind causes a flameout. Thus, in some embodiments, the perimeter plate and burner plate can also have reflective surfaces to help maximize light provided by the burner assembly. Furthermore, in some embodiments of the present invention, the surfaces of the perimeter plate and burner plate are decorative, and provided with decorative patterns, since they can be visible and exposed without being shielded for protection from flame-out.
a is a top left perspective view of an embodiment of an outdoor burner assembly for the present invention, with the cover removed.
b is a top left perspective view of the burner assembly of
In the following description, certain specific details are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of various embodiments of the invention. However, upon reviewing this disclosure, one skilled in the art will understand that the invention may be practiced without many of these details. In other instances, well-known structures related to burner assemblies and pilot systems have not been described in detail to avoid unnecessarily obscuring the descriptions of the embodiments of the invention.
Various embodiments of the present invention are described in the context of decorative outdoor burners that can provide heat, ambience and lighting. However, as those skilled in the art will appreciate after reviewing this disclosure, various types of burner assemblies are contemplated herein. The context described and illustrated herein is not intended to be limiting and is provided to illustrate example embodiments of the present invention.
a shows an embodiment of the burner assembly 2 of the present invention, having a body 14 supportable within a stand 18. The body 14 can have the shape of a bowl, with an interior chamber for containing a burner system. Also, a surrounding table section 12 can be attached to a top rim portion of the body 14, in a manner that the surrounding table section 12 surrounds a rim of the body 14 and extends outward therefrom, as shown in
Referring now to
Still referring to
In some embodiments of the present invention, each of the plurality of pilot canopies 8 shown in
Also, as can be seen in
The pilot burners 30 are at least partially shielded from environmental influences within the canopies 8. Furthermore, the pilot canopies 8 can provide decorative effect to the burner assembly 2, such as by, for example, decoratively concealing the pilot burner 30.
It is also noted that the provision of multiple pilot burners 30, one situated within each pilot canopy 8 at different sides or locations of the burner plate 20, such as in a diametrically opposed fashion as illustrated in
Referring to
As best seen in
Although specific embodiments and examples of the invention have been described supra for illustrative purposes, various equivalent modifications can be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention, as will be recognized by those skilled in the relevant art after reviewing the present disclosure. The various embodiments described can be combined to provide further embodiments. The described apparatus and methods can omit some elements or acts, can add other elements or acts, or can combine the elements or execute the acts in a different manner or order than that illustrated, to achieve various advantages of the invention. These and other changes can be made to the invention in light of the above detailed description.
In general, in the following claims, the terms used should not be construed to limit the invention to the specific embodiments disclosed in the specification. Accordingly, the invention is not limited by the disclosure, but instead its scope is determined entirely by the following claims.
