EP3889527B1

EP3889527B1 - Built-in assembly comprising a refrigerating appliance and a piece of furniture

Info

Publication number: EP3889527B1
Application number: EP20167545.1A
Authority: EP
Inventors: Andrea Olivani; Matteo Parnisari
Original assignee: Whirlpool Corp
Current assignee: Whirlpool Corp
Priority date: 2020-04-01
Filing date: 2020-04-01
Publication date: 2023-05-31
Anticipated expiration: 2040-04-01
Also published as: EP3889527A1

Description

The present invention relates to a refrigerating built-in appliance configured for installation in a piece of kitchen furniture having a front panel hinged to a cabinet structure. The front panel is typically arranged frontally at a door of the refrigerating appliance and connected thereto by way of at least a sliding and connecting device which comprises a rail element and a sliding element.
In the above kind of appliances the sliding and connecting device is installed between the door of the appliance and the front panel of a piece of furniture containing the household appliance, such panel being a door of the furniture niche.
According to such known technique it is possible to use both hinges, i.e. the hinge of the built-in appliance door and the hinge of the furniture front panel, without the need of using expensive special hinges having several axis of rotation.
For practical and aesthetical reasons, the two "doors", i.e. door of appliance and the panel/door of the piece of furniture, should remain as close to each other as possible during opening and closing, when there is a lateral shift between the two doors due to the two different vertical axis of hinges.
EP857929 discloses a built-in refrigerator in which a sliding element is installed on the vertical side of an appliance door, and a rail element is installed on a front panel of a piece of furniture configured to accommodate the built-in refrigerator, so that one of its ends protrudes from the sliding element during the entire rotation of the front panel which draws the appliance door. Therefore, for all possible positions of the front panel and door, both components of the sliding and connecting device are at least partially visible by the user when he/she opens the door of the appliance.
The same considerations apply to the solution shown in DE4200333A1 where a rail element is fastened to a upper side of an appliance door and a sliding element is fastened to a front panel of a piece of furniture configured to accommodate the built-in refrigerator.
Document EP0657609A1 discloses a device for hinging a door of a built-in refrigerator to a door panel of a furniture item. The device comprises hinge means having a part which is fixed to the furniture item and to the appliance and a part which is associated with the door panel and which comprises elastic return means for self-closure of the door panel. The device further comprises drag means for the door, The drag means includes a L-shaped guide supported by the door panel slidingly cooperating with a slide of complementary form fixed to the refrigerator door.
Document WO2018/133210A1 discloses a door connecting device for an embedded refrigerator.
Document WO2013/182428A1 discloses a built-in household appliance comprising a decorative panel.
Despite robustness and reliability of known sliding and connecting devices of the type above, they are generally perceived as cheap solutions due to their visibility to users when opening and closing the door of a refrigerator appliance.
Moreover, rail elements are typically provided with a removable plastic cover that conceals the screws used for fastening such element. During use of the appliance and in view of the position of the rail element near the vertical edges of the doors restrained to each other, such cover can be accidentally detached, increasing the low perceived quality of the device.
For this reasons, direct connection of furniture panels to refrigerator doors is more and more used by manufactures of kitchen furniture. However, this solution is far more expensive and complex than sliding and connecting devices. Hence, a need exists to improve sliding and connecting devices for refrigerator built-in appliances.
To this end, the invention relates to a built-in appliance including all the features of the independent claim.
Preferred embodiments are defined in the dependent claims.
Further technical features and advantages of the invention will be clear in the following description, which is provided as a non-limiting example, with reference to the accompanying drawings in which:

Figure 1 is a perspective view of a built-in appliance according to a first embodiment, with a door in an open configuration, the first embodiment not falling within the scope of appended claims;
Figure 2 is an enlarged view of a detail of figure 1;
Figure 3 is a section along line III-III of figure 2;
Figure 4 is a perspective view of a built-in appliance according to a second embodiment, with a door in an open configuration, the second embodiment being according to the invention and falling within the scope of appended claims;
Figure 5 is an enlarged view of a detail of figure 4;
Figure 6 is a section along line VI-VI of figure 5;
Figure 7 is a perspective view of the sliding element according to the first embodiment;
Figure 8 is a perspective view of the sliding element according to the second embodiment of the invention.

The indications "upper", "lower", "top", "front", "bottom", "floor", "horizontal", "vertical" and the like refer to the positions and orientations of the household appliance in its intended use position with respect to an observer located in front of the household appliance.
With reference to the drawings, A indicates a kitchen piece of furniture having an upper front panel A1 and a lower front panel A2 (for instance wooden panels or the like), both hinged to the piece of furniture A along a vertical axis and acting as doors of the piece of furniture A. Inside the piece of furniture A a built-in refrigerating appliance 10 (shown only schematically in the drawings) having an upper door 12 for closing a refrigeration compartment 12a and a lower door 14 for closing a freezer compartment is inserted. Between each panel A1 and A2 of the piece of furniture A and each door 12 and 14 of the appliance 10 a sliding and connecting device 16, comprising a sliding element, or cursor, 18 and a rail 20, is interposed. Reference will be made in the following to door 12 and panel A1. It goes without saying that the same considerations apply, mutatis mutandis, to door 14 and panel A2.
According to a first embodiment, which is not part of the present invention, shown in figures 1-3 and 7, the sliding element 18 is L-shaped and has a first flat portion 18a fastened to an upper horizontal edge 12b of the appliance door 12 and a second flat orthogonal portion 18b on which a hollow profile 18c having a C-shaped cross section is formed. The rail 20 is fastened on a rear surface of the front panel A1 and features a H-shaped cross section configured to match and engage the C-shaped cross section of the hollow profile 18c. The sliding element 18 is fastened to the door 12 at a predetermined position, for instance in a seat (not shown) provided in the upper edge of the door so that the first flat portion 18a may be substantially flush with such upper edge 12b. Fastening screws (not shown) are inserted in openings 18d of the first flat portion 18. Moreover, the first flat portion 18a has a seat 19 where a flat plug (not shown) can be mounted e.g. by snap-fitting in order to hide the screw heads and the openings 18d. The rail element 20 is fastened to the panel A1 or A2 by means of screws, and for its correct initial positioning a self-adhesive tape (not shown) may be used during the assembly of the built-in appliance.
The sliding element 18 may be fastened to the door 12 also by using its second vertical portion 18b which, in this case, will be provided with holes (not shown) for fastening screws.
The shape and dimensions of the sliding element 18 (as indicated in figure 3) are such that the rail 20 on which it slides is completely interposed between the panel A1 and the door 12 of the appliance, so that in any position of such door 12 during its opening and closing movement, it is totally invisible to the user. What the user can see is only the first flat horizontal portion 18a of the sliding element 18, which is small and placed in a seat of the upper edge of the door, so that its visibility is very low.
The same kind of sliding connection between the panel and the door of the appliance can be used for the lower panel A2 (freezer) as well. Of course some variants of this system can be adopted, for instance the sliding and connecting device 16 can be positioned at the lower edge of the door 12, or two sliding devices 16 can be used for both horizontal edges of the door 12. Also the shape of the sliding element 18 and of the rail element 20 can be different from what shown in the drawings, and the cross section of the rail 20 can be different from the H shape shown in the drawings, for instance it could have a simple T-shaped cross section. Also the fastening means of the rail element 20 to the panels A1 and A2 could be different from screws. Alternatively, the rail element 20 could be glued to the panel.
With reference to figures 4-6 and 8, a second embodiment of the sliding and connecting device 16 is shown wherein this comprises a rail element 20 that is substantially identical to the one used in the first embodiment. Instead of the L-shaped sliding element 18, a sliding element 22 having a quadrangular flat shape, with a first surface 22a having lowered seats 24 and a second surface 22b having a C-shaped hollow profile 22c configured (as in the first embodiment) to engage the rail element 20. In the seats 24 of the sliding element 22 elongated magnetic inserts 26 are fastened (for instance by glue), such inserts 26 being designed for cooperating with the metal door 12 of the appliance 10 for fastening the sliding element 22 thereto. The seats 24 are placed adjacent to parallel opposite edges of the sliding element 22 and the C-shaped hollow profile 22c is placed, on the other side 22b of the sliding element 22, in a central position between the seats 24 so that the seats 24 and the C-shaped hollow profile 22c exploit the thickness of the sliding element 22. The depth of the seats 24 and the thickness of the magnetic inserts 26 are such that the first surface 22a of the sliding element 22 is at the same level of the inserts 26, as clearly shown in figure 6, so that the magnetic fastening is robust, with no deflection of the sliding element 22. By choosing a proper length and surface of the magnetic inserts 26, the sliding element 22 can be reliably fastened to the front flat surface of the metal door 12 of the appliance 20.
During installation of the built-in appliance, it is sufficient to fasten the rail 20 to the panel A1, to slide on it the sliding element 22 in a proper position and then to close the panel A1 on the appliance door 12, so that the magnetic inserts 26 can exert their effect. By pulling out the panel A1 for opening the appliance door, the rail 20 will draw the door 12 by means of the sliding element 22 attached magnetically to the metal door 12. In order to remove the panel A1 or A2 from the door 12 or 14 (for instance for maintenance purposes), the user can lever with a tool between the panel and the door.
Both the sliding element 22 and the rail element 20 are fully interposed between the panel A1 or A2 and the door 12 or 14 so that the sliding and connecting device 16 is not visible by the user.
In the second embodiment a rail element 20 may be provided with magnetic inserts in order to be magnetically fastened to the door 12 of the appliance, while the sliding element 22 may be fastened by way of screws or the like to the panel A1 of the kitchen furniture A. Moreover, in the second embodiment the whole sliding element 22 can be made of magnetic material instead of using magnetic inserts.

Claims

Built-in assembly comprising a refrigerating appliance (10) and a piece of furniture (A, A1, A2) having a cabinet structure and a front panel (A1, A2) hinged to said cabinet structure,
wherein said cabinet structure is configured to receive said refrigerating appliance (10),

wherein said front panel (A1, A2) is arranged at a door (12, 14) of the refrigerating appliance (10) and is connected thereto by means of at least one sliding and connecting device (16) which comprises a rail element (20) and a sliding element (18, 22),

wherein both the sliding element (22) and the rail element (20) are fully interposed between the front panel (A1, A2) and the refrigerating appliance door (12, 14) so that they are fully hidden from view in the installed configuration,

characterised in that one of the sliding element (22) and rail element (20) comprises at least a magnetic portion for its fastening to the refrigerating appliance door (12, 14).
Built-in assembly according to claim 1, wherein said magnetic portion comprises magnetic inserts (26) and wherein one of the sliding element (22) and rail element (20) comprises seats (24) to accommodate said magnetic inserts (26).
Built-in assembly according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the sliding element (22) has a flat quadrangular shape and presents a first surface (22a) with the seats (24) for the magnetic inserts (26) placed adjacent opposite and parallel sides and a second surface (22b) with a C-shaped hollow cross section profile (22c) placed centrally and parallel to the seats (24) for cooperating with a matching T-shaped cross section profile of the rail element (20).