Field of the Invention
The present invention pertains to the art of refrigerators and, more particularly, to a shelving assembly used to support vertically adjustable shelves in a compartment of a refrigerator.
Description of the Related Art
In the art of refrigerators, it is widely known to employ a plurality of shelves and compartments, including drawers and bins, to store a wide range of food products. In the case of shelves, in order to accommodate varying sized food items to be stored, many different types of shelving systems have been proposed, including shelving assemblies that will enable shelves to be supported at heights that can be varied as desired. Vertically adjustable shelving arrangements for refrigerators typically employ shelf ladders fixedly secured to and projecting from the rear wall of a refrigerator compartment for removably securing hooks of shelf supporting brackets. Current ladder designs can employ about thirty to forty rectangular openings or slots stamped into each one of a pair of spaced elongated steel bars. Overall, the bars with the visual holes can be considered visually unappealing.
The present invention is directed to a refrigerator shelving assembly which enables various shelves to be supported from ladder rails which are mounted within spaced elongated pockets formed in the rear wall of a compartment of the refrigerator. Each ladder rail presents a front wall portion, a side wall portion, a rear wall portion and, adjacent the front wall portion, a vertical slot which is visible from the front of the refrigerator compartment. The slot is defined, at least in part, by an in-turned portion of the front wall portion. Offset from the slot, behind the front wall portion and spaced forward of the rear wall portion of the ladder rail, the in-turned portion is formed with a plurality of vertically spaced and rearwardly projecting hooks. The hooks are exposed to a receiving zone established within the ladder rail, with the front wall portion including at least one cutout opening into the receiving zone.
Each shelf of the assembly includes arms which interact with the ladder rails to retain the shelves at selected vertical positions with the refrigerator compartment. More specifically, each arm includes an anchoring pin and a support foot. In mounting the shelf, the support foot and the anchoring pin on each arm is positioned within a respective receiving zone by way of one of the cutout openings, while the arm extends through the slot. Once in the receiving zone, the shelf can be freely, vertically adjusted. After a desired vertical mounting position is selected, the anchoring pin is shifted into a position wherein the anchoring pin is retained on a selected hook, while the support foot abuts the rear wall portion of the ladder rail.
With the above arrangement, a fully adjustable, yet aesthetically pleasing, shelving assembly is established. In accordance with other aspects of the invention, visual indicator lines are provided along the front wall portion to reflect the positioning of the hooks and delineate the potential positions for the shelf. In addition, one or more ladder rails cooperate with the support foot to provide power to a lighting arrangement incorporated into the shelf. In any case, additional objects, features and advantages of the present invention will become more readily apparent from the following detailed description of preferred embodiments when taken in conjunction with the drawings wherein like reference numerals refer to corresponding parts in the several views.
With initial reference to
In general, ladder rails 41 and 43 are identically constructed, while ladder rails 42 and 44 are also identically constructed and mirror images of ladder rails 41 and 43. Therefore, a detailed description of ladder rail 42 will be presented with reference to
Offset from vertical slot 66, behind front wall portion 52 and spaced forward of rear wall portion 56 of ladder rail 42, in-turned portion 60 is formed with a plurality of vertically spaced and rearwardly projecting hooks, one of which is indicated at 72. Each hook 72 defines an arcuate notch 77 and extends towards rear wall portion 56 into receiving zone 78. As also depicted in these figures, front wall portion 52 is provided with an upper opening or cutout 80 for reasons which will be detailed more fully below. Front wall portion 52 can actually be provided with additional vertically spaced cutouts, such as exemplified by cutout 82. At this point, it should simply be recognized that each cutout 82, 82 opens into receiving zone 78. Finally, rear wall portion 56 of ladder rail 42 includes a mounting tab 85 shown to project above a height of front wall portion 52.
Reference will now be made to
Reference will now be made to
With the above configuration, it should be readily apparent that hooks 72 are not visible from a front view of compartment 8. Instead, with ladder rails 41-44 being located in pockets 45-48 and ladder rails 41-44 being configured as described above, it is only apparent that arms 112 and 113 extend from respective vertical slots 66. The loading of shelves 30-33 with food items merely enhances the rigidity of the mounting configuration by further retaining each anchoring pin 116 in the notch 77 of a selected hook 72. Still, each shelf 30-33 can be readily, vertically adjusted by simply lifting and angling the shelf 30-33 backwards, slidably repositioning the shelf with anchoring pin 116 being within receiving zone 78 and spaced from hooks 72 as discussed above with reference to
In accordance with the embodiment wherein one or more of shelves 30-33 includes a lighting unit, such as lighting unit 124, it is preferred to transfer power to lighting unit 124 through this overall rail mounting arrangement. To this end,
Although described with reference to preferred embodiments of the invention, it should be readily understood that various changes and/or modifications can be made to the invention without departing from the spirit thereof. For instance, while four laterally spaced pockets are presented in the illustrated embodiment, it should be recognized that only two pockets need be employed for shelves extending across the entire width of the compartment and, even in the case of half-shelves, the center two pockets could be combined by forming one larger pocket. In general, the invention is only intended to be limited by the scope of the following claims.
This application represents a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/984,259, filed on Dec. 30, 2015 and titled “Shelving Assembly for Refrigerator Compartment”, which is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/788,418, filed on Mar. 7, 2013 and titled “Shelving Assembly for Refrigerator Compartment”. The entire content of these applications is incorporated herein by reference.
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Number | Date | Country | |
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Number | Date | Country | |
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Parent | 14984259 | Dec 2015 | US |
Child | 15182846 | US | |
Parent | 13788418 | Mar 2013 | US |
Child | 14984259 | US |