This application is a nationalization under 35 U.S.C. 371 of PCT/NO2010/000176, filed May 12, 2010 and published as WO 2010/137987 A2 on Dec. 2, 2010, which claimed priority to Norwegian Patent Application No. 20092120, filed May 29, 2009; which applications and publication are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety.
The present invention relates to a water heater, a combination of a top cover and a bottom tray for a water heater, and a bottom cover for a water heater, and more specifically to a water heater, a combination, and a bottom cover.
There are presently known water heaters or boilers for mounting on a floor and having valves arranged at the top or at the bottom. Similarly, there exist water heaters for mounting on a wall and connected at the bottom.
The present design is based on permanently tight tubing to the valves and the tank of the water heater. However, in practice, one or several components will sooner or later start leaking, in the range from some drops per hour and to a complete blowout.
If it was decreed by law that all water heaters should be arranged in rooms with a floor drain water leakage would not have occurred, at least not in the present extent, but such a law does not exist and the installer can thus make his completely own decisions and take the risks that no water damages will later occur.
A recently implemented requirement from water heater manufacturers states that if the water heater is not arranged in a room provided with a floor drain, a water stop valve (with a function similar to what is used in some dishwashing machines) has to be mounted. This water stop valve thus functions by means of a sensor line which contacts the floor, and if water on the floor should be sensed, the valve will close the cold water inlet to the water heater. The water heater will thus not be replenished with cold water when a water leakage is occurring, but the water volume already contained in the water heater will not be influenced by the water stop valve. For a water heater with a capacity of 200 liters, as much as 200 liters will then be able leak out and cause large and expensive water damages in the building. In countries in which the agglomeration of buildings is dominated by wooden structures, such as in Norway and in the remaining Nordic countries, the costs will inherently be particularly large due to such leakages, and at the same time the risk of such damages is larger in a relative perspective due to the risk of frost.
In this context it should be mentioned that the total costs in Norway per year related to water damages amount to in the order of 3 billon Norwegian kroner.
As to prior art, US 20080017135 A1 and US 20060169321 A1 disclose two respective leakage protection bags to be drawn around a water heater and having an outlet at the bottom, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,881,762 A discloses a bottom tray with an outlet to be retrofitted below a water containing device, such as a water heater.
The object of the water heater, the combination and the bottom cover according to the present invention is to mitigate or eliminate the above-mentioned and other disadvantages.
Advantageous embodiments of the invention are stated in the dependent claims.
In the following, embodiments of the invention are described, with reference to the enclosed drawings, in which:
According to a first aspect of the present invention, and as shown in
According to a second aspect of the present invention, and as shown in
The insulation shell 14 is advantageously made of a suitable foam material which enables, in an efficient and cost effective way, to form the void or channel 21 when the insulation shell 14 is manufactured.
Except from the fact that the invention according to the above-mentioned second aspect efficiently prevents water leakage from any location on or within the water heater 2, an attractive and integrated design is achieved.
A simplified embodiment of the second aspect of the invention is shown in
According to a first embodiment of a third aspect of the invention, and as shown in
The covers 54, 56 according to the third aspect of the invention is very suitable for being retrofitted to existing water heaters 5, in addition to the option of being delivered as a part of new water heaters.
All directional terms in the description and in the claims of the kind “front”, “in front of”, “foremost”, “rear”, “rearmost”, “upper”, “lower”, “top”, “bottom”, etc. are related to a water heater in its mounted operational state.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
---|---|---|---|
20092120 | May 2009 | NO | national |
Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind | 371c Date |
---|---|---|---|---|
PCT/NO2010/000176 | 5/12/2010 | WO | 00 | 1/4/2012 |
Publishing Document | Publishing Date | Country | Kind |
---|---|---|---|
WO2010/137987 | 12/2/2010 | WO | A |
Number | Name | Date | Kind |
---|---|---|---|
2328245 | Yavitch | Aug 1943 | A |
4805662 | Moody | Feb 1989 | A |
4944253 | Bellofatto | Jul 1990 | A |
5134683 | Powell | Jul 1992 | A |
5881762 | Janesky | Mar 1999 | A |
6058892 | Haack, II | May 2000 | A |
6701069 | Cezayirli et al. | Mar 2004 | B1 |
7458340 | Takeda et al. | Dec 2008 | B2 |
7900589 | Gordon et al. | Mar 2011 | B2 |
7971560 | Gordon et al. | Jul 2011 | B2 |
20060169321 | Houle | Aug 2006 | A1 |
20080017135 | Broadway et al. | Jan 2008 | A1 |
Entry |
---|
“Norwegian Application Serial No. 20092120, Search Report dated Dec. 22, 2009”, 2 pgs. |
Number | Date | Country | |
---|---|---|---|
20120067301 A1 | Mar 2012 | US |