BACKGROUND
In many industrial settings, emergency shower and/or eyewash booths, as used herein collectively “emergency showers,” are provided to enable a user to rapidly wash away a contaminant. Typical emergency showers have a drain pan as a base with three sides forming an emergency shower booth. Typically, these may be manufactured of stainless steel, although other materials may be utilized. The drain pan retains the water when the emergency shower is used and provides a drain to evacuate the water (and any contaminates) into a suitable plumbing system. This may be to a conventional sewer system; however, due to the potential for contaminated water, the drain may lead to specialized treatment facilities.
Conventional drain pan implementations suffer from a number of noted disadvantages. A first noted disadvantage is that there is often a single threaded drain opening mounted along one of the vertical sides of the drain pan. FIG. 1 illustrates a conventional emergency shower environment 100 using a side drain. A drain pan 105 is shown with a plurality of vertical walls 110 forming a partially enclosed shower booth. The drain pan 105 illustratively comprises of a base portion with four upright walls that extend upright for several inches. In a side drain environment, the base portion is typically sloped towards the threaded drain opening 115 to aid in water evacuation when the emergency shower is used. The drain pan 105 typically consists of a single unit and is often made of stainless steel. The vertical walls 110 are then attached to the upright walls to make the emergency shower booth drain pan watertight and of a desired height.
A pipe 120 (shown truncated) is illustratively used to provide a water source to either an emergency showerhead (not shown), an eyewash station (not shown), or a combination unit. An exemplary threaded drain opening 115 is illustratively shown along a back wall of the emergency shower 100. However, in various implementations, the threaded drain opening 115 could alternatively be on the left, right, or even front of an upright wall of the drain pan 105. As will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, the required location of the threaded drain opening 115 may vary due to the needs of a customer. This may be caused by the required location of the threaded drain opening along any of the sides of the emergency shower. This may be caused by the location of the emergency shower in a customer's facility, which may be limited by the location of drainpipe services within the facility. This results in wide variability in manufacturing and adds time and complexity to the production of these units.
The threaded drain opening 115 may have a pump (not shown) operatively interconnected to evacuate the water from the drain pan 105 during operation. However, a noted disadvantage is that once the water level in the drain pan drops to approximately three-quarters of an inch, the pump typically begins to draw too much air from the drain opening, thereby preventing it from effectively evacuating the water from the drain pan. To adhere to the 2017 International Plumbing Code section 811.7, there is a common allowable amount of liquid remaining in the safety shower drain pan to be ¼-inch. Thus, as the pump loses efficiency from evacuating the water, the water level typically remains above the success criteria. This may result in a user standing in approximately three-quarters of an inch of contaminated water which is not being successfully evacuated from the drain pan.
FIG. 2 is an exemplary view of an alternative drain configuration 200 where the drain is positioned in the bottom face of the drain pan and drained via gravity. The underside of the drain pan 105 is shown having an exemplary gravity drain fitting 205. The opening 210 is the potable water supply connection and is utilized for the necessary plumbing to enter the drain pan for the shower and/or eyewash apparatus. In this alternative configuration, the drain fitting 205 is illustratively installed by welding directly onto the drain pan and is therefore a permanent feature to the pan. In this alternative configuration 200, the base of drain pan 105 will be gradually sloped towards the gravity fed drain 205. Due to the permanent nature of the drain fitting 205, only emergency shower booths intended for gravity draining would utilize such a drain pan 105. This creates an additional complication for manufacturing and installation of emergency shower booths in terms of sloping the drain pan towards a drain for configurations 100 or 200.
Further, a noted disadvantage is that a single drain pan may not be converted from a gravity drain to a pumped side drain (or vice versa) due to the slope of the base of the drain pan. To obtain the required less than one-quarter of an inch of standing water, the base of the drain pan has to be sloped either towards the gravity drain 205 (FIG. 2) or towards a side outlet 115 (FIG. 1). Thus, manufacturers of emergency shower booths need to stock a plurality of differing drain pans to meet the installation needs of their customers. This adds additional time, cost, and space requirements for storing a plurality of differently configured drain pans.
SUMMARY
The disadvantages of the prior art are overcome by the novel universal drain described herein. The present invention enables a universal drain pan that comprises a substantially flat base portion with four upright portions is provided. Along a plurality of the upright portions are installed threaded side drains. The threaded side drains illustratively are designed as a hollow cylinder with a downward facing slit which serves to reduce the amount of water left in the drain pan to less than one eighth of an inch.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRA WINGS
The above and further advantages of the present invention are described in reference to the accompanying drawings in which like reference numerals indicate identical or functionally similar elements, of which:
FIG. 1, previously described, is a perspective view of an exemplary prior art side drained emergency shower system;
FIG. 2, previously described, is a perspective view of an exemplary prior art gravity drain emergency shower system;
FIG. 3 is a perspective view of exemplary universal drain pan connection outlets in accordance with an illustrative embodiment of the present invention;
FIG. 4 is a side view of an exemplary side drain in a universal drain pan connection outlet in accordance with an illustrative embodiment of the present invention; and
FIG. 5 is a perspective view of an exemplary side drain illustrating a downward-facing suction slit in accordance with an illustrative embodiment of the present invention.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF AN ILLUSTRATIVE EMBODIMENT
FIG. 3 is a perspective view 300 from the underside of an exemplary universal drain pan 305 in accordance with an illustrative embodiment of the present invention. Illustratively, the universal drain pan 305 includes a plurality of drain options, which may be selected and utilized when the universal drain pan is installed in the field. By providing a plurality of drain options, a manufacturer may make the universal drain pan, which may then be configured in the field, obviating the need to manufacture and stock a plurality of differing drain pans with varying drain configurations and drain pan slopes.
Exemplary view 300 shows three side ports 310. There would be a side port 310 on the back, left, and right sides of the drain pan for a shower enclosure. The human entrance side 315 would not have a drain port 310 typically. It should be noted that in accordance with alternative embodiments of the present invention side ports may be located on a differing number of sides of the pan. Therefore, the description of three side ports 310 being utilized should be taken as exemplary only. Illustratively, the side ports terminate as female, but in alternative embodiments of the invention could be male connectors.
When an illustrative universal drain pan is being installed in the field, unused side ports may be deactivated by utilizing a conventional off-the-shelf plug to ensure that there is no leakage from the drain pan.
FIG. 4 is a perspective view of exemplary side ports 310. In accordance with an illustrative embodiment of the present invention, the side ports are illustratively set flush to the outer wall of the drain pan 305 to serve to minimize the required space. As noted, the drain port 310 is a female port. In alternative embodiments the side port could be either protruding or recessed with respect to the outer wall of the drain pan 305. Additionally, in alternative embodiments a male port may be utilized; however, a female port is generally able to be set closer to the ground. Further, the drains 310 are mounted extremely low, effectively touching the bottom of the drain pan 305. Further, the drains are designed as a hollow cylinder with a downward facing slit (see FIG. 5) which serves to reduce the amount of water left in the drain pan to less than one eighth of an inch. This is approximately equal to the amount of water left in the pan when utilizing a gravity drain.
FIG. 5 is a perspective view of a side drain 310-shown removed from the drain pan 305 (not shown). For reference, the outlet face 505 is illustratively flush to the outer wall of the drain pan 305. The lower flat faces 510 are set coincident with the drain pan 305, effectively resting the side drain 310 directly upon the drain pan 305. The downward-facing suction slit 515 is positioned to draw water levels in the drain pan 305 to a minimal level, when operatively interconnected with a suction pump (not shown). Furthermore, as the suction slit 515 is recessed upward and away from lower flat faces 510, it is thereby prevented from contacting or drawing closer to the drain pan 305 and it prevents a loss of suction or efficacy of the suction pump. As noted, this side drain 310 is generally cylindrical; however, in alternative embodiments a variety of shapes could be utilized for similar effect. In accordance with an illustrative embodiment of the present invention, the cross-sectional water intake area formed when suction slit 515 is installed is approximately 20% greater than the cross-sectional area of the outlet opening 505. This aids in preventing the suction slit from adding substantial pressure loss to the drainage system as a whole. In alternative embodiments, differing sizes may be utilized. Therefore, the description of this intake area being approximately 20% greater than the cross section of opening 505 should be taken as exemplary only.
Patent Application
20240382045
