JPH06165978A - Cleaning device and cleaning method for bath tub hot water - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To sterilize bath tub hot water without using chemicals at all and without giving any harm to a bather. CONSTITUTION:A heating tank 11 is disposed in a branch pipeline 20 from a main circulation path 10 equipped with a filter tank 4 and a circulating pump 7 and the bath tub hot water is subjected to a sterilization treatment batchwise by repeating the operations of properly changing over selector valves 21 and 22 under the control of a controller 23 to change over the hot water to the main circulation path 10 and the branch circulation path and sterilizing the hot water stored in the heating tank 11 under heating at a sterilization temp., then lowering the temp. down to a bathing temp. and returning the hot water to a bath tub 1. As a result, the hot water is sterilized under heating without using the chemicals for sterilization and, therefore, there is no worry about the harm to the bather.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a bathtub apparatus, and more particularly to a hot water sterilizing apparatus in a bathtub hot water cleaning apparatus.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Recently, a bathtub in which hot water in a bathtub is pumped up by a circulation pump to forcefully circulate the bathtub hot water circulation passage in which various cleaning treatment devices are provided and to eject the purified water into the bathtub again. A hot water purifier has been developed.

In a conventional bath water cleaning device, dirt components are removed by ion exchange, and at the same time activated stones such as barley stone that elutes and activates minerals, activated carbon that adsorbs and removes dirt, and ion exchange of dirt. At the same time, a filtration tank is provided in which a filtration layer is formed by filling porous granular filter media with various water treatment capacities such as zeolite that has been adsorbed and removed, either individually or in combination, and the dirt floating by this filtration tank At the same time that the water is filtered, a treatment according to the water treatment capacity of the filter medium is performed to clean the hot water.

On the other hand, the recent apparatus is not only for removing the dirt from the hot water to clean it, but also for keeping the hot water at a proper temperature by a heater so that it can be bathed for 24 hours at any time. Has become.

In the case of such a device, it is necessary to provide a sterilizing device in order to prevent Escherichia coli and other bacteria from propagating in hot water, and as a simple sterilizing device, a high-pressure discharge type ozone generator, so-called ozonizer is used. It came to be deployed.

In the ozonizer, a high voltage is applied to the electrodes and silent discharge is performed to ozone the oxygen in the air introduced into the apparatus to generate ozone air, which is air containing a predetermined amount of ozone. Is inhaled in hot water for ozone sterilization.

[0007]

However, in the conventional ozone sterilization, it was very difficult to completely sterilize the hot water without harming the human body.

That is, when the hot water is sterilized with ozone, the unreacted ozone remaining in the hot water is emitted from the bathtub, so that the bather smells ozone and becomes uncomfortable. , Irritation of the skin and various ozone damage.

In order to prevent such a problem, the ozone concentration of ozone air used for sterilization is made as low as possible,
It has been considered to separate unreacted ozone from hot water in front of the bath, decompose it, and exhaust it, or to carry out ozone sterilization during the time when there are no bathers, but each has its own problems. Was not an effective measure.

In sterilization with low-concentration ozone, it is difficult to stably generate low-concentration ozone air because it is difficult to ozonize air at a low voltage, and if sterilization of hot water is terrible, sterilization is poor. It will be very difficult.

Since sterilization with low-concentration ozone air is difficult, sterilization is performed with high-concentration ozone air that can be stably generated, and unreacted ozone air is separated from hot water before the bath and decomposed. It was considered to be harmless and then exhausted.

In order to separate the unreacted ozone air from the hot water, a gas-liquid separator and an ozone decomposer for decomposing the ozone in the separated air into harmless oxygen must be provided. .

However, when the gas-liquid separation device and the ozone decomposing device are provided in this way, the device is naturally complicated and expensive, and in particular, the ozone decomposing device separates ozone in the air separated from hot water and having humidity. Since it is difficult to completely disassemble, it is complicated and expensive, and it is difficult to deploy it in the bath water cleaning device.

As described above, it is difficult to use low-concentration ozone air or separate unreacted ozone air,
It has also been considered that the operating time of the ozone sterilizer for one day is programmed and the sterilization is performed with high-concentration ozone air only in the time zone where there is no bather such as midnight.

In this case, since ozone sterilization is not carried out during the bathing time, the bather is hardly harmed by ozone, but bacteria such as Escherichia coli breed very badly during the bathing time, and the latter Bathers will have to enter the dirty water, which is heavily bacterial-grown.

Further, it is difficult to completely sterilize the bacteria that badly propagated during the bathing time zone only during the sterilization time zone, and the sterilization of hot water tends to be incomplete.

The present invention improves on the above-mentioned drawbacks of the prior art, and replaces ozone sterilization with a simple and inexpensive sterilizer that does not cause any harm to the human body, thereby keeping hot water constantly clean. It is an object of the present invention to provide a bathtub cleaning device that can be maintained.

[0018]

That is, according to the present invention, hot water in a bathtub is pumped up by a circulation pump, and hot water which has been subjected to a cleaning treatment is forcibly circulated through a bathtub hot water circulation passage provided with various cleaning treatment equipment. In the apparatus for purifying bath water to be ejected again into the bathtub, a heating tank for sterilization is provided in a branch pipe line from the main circulation line in which the purification treatment devices are arranged in series. It is a cleaning device, and by switching the switching valve under the control of the control device, the hot water circulation path is switched between the main circulation path and the branch pipeline, and the hot water in the heating tank is batch-sterilized by heating and sterilization. It is a method for cleaning hot water in a bathtub, which is characterized in that it is returned to

[0019]

The present invention is constructed as described above, and hot water is circulated by switching the switching valve to the heating tank provided in the branch line from the main circulation line to heat it to a high temperature to sterilize it by batch treatment. The hot water that has been sterilized is cut off from heating, and at the same time the hot water flowing through the main circulation path is introduced into the heating tank to lower the bath temperature, and then returned to the bath via the main circulation path by switching the switching valve. .

When sterilizing hot water in a heating tank,
Since it is necessary to raise the temperature and maintain it at that temperature for a certain period of time, and to return the sterilized hot water to the bathtub, it is necessary to lower it to the bathing temperature. Since it is deployed, other cleaning processes in the main circuit can be performed during this time.

As described above, the hot water can be effectively sterilized by appropriately circulating the hot water in the heating tank by switching the switching valve, and since no chemicals such as ozone are used for the sterilization, health for the bather is good. There is no need to worry about harm to.

[0022]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS FIG. 1 is a piping diagram showing the basic structure of a bath water purifying apparatus according to the present invention, in which 1 is a bath containing hot water 2 and 3 is a bathtub.
Is a suction tank for pumping hot water 2 out of the bathtub 1, and 4 is a filtration tank in which a heater 6 is provided on the bottom face for keeping the hot water at the bathing temperature at the same time as the filter medium 5 is filled.

The filter medium 5 is filled with granular filter medium such as barley stone, activated carbon, zeolite or the like in a single layer or a plurality of layers. In the filter tank 4, dirt in the hot water is filtered and at the same time adsorption, activation and ionization are performed. Perform cleaning treatment based on the water treatment function of the filter media such as replacement.

Reference numeral 7 is a circulation pump for forcibly circulating the hot water 2 in the bath tub 1, and 8 is a spout tube for jetting the cleaned hot water into the bath 1 again, which circulates with the filtration tank 4. The pump 7 and the pump 7 are connected by a connecting pipe 9 to form a main circulation path 10.

In the main circulation path 10, a heat exchanger may be provided in place of the heater 6 provided in the filtration tank 4, or a bobbin filter may be provided upstream of the filtration tank 4. There is no.

A heating tank 11 is provided with a heater 12 for heating and a hot water temperature sensor 13 for detecting the hot water temperature at the same time, and at the same time, a bottom portion is provided as a sensor for detecting the water level in the tank. There are provided three water level sensors 14, 15, 16 in the middle and upper parts, and an intake / exhaust pipe 17 for releasing hot water into and out of the tank to the atmosphere.

Reference numeral 18 is a branch pipe branched from the connecting pipe 9 of the main circulation passage 10 and connected to the heating tank 11 via a switching valve 21, and 19 is a switching valve 22 from the spout pipe 8 of the main circulation passage 10.
It is a branch pipe which is branched through and is connected to the heating tank 11, and a branch pipe line 20 is formed by both the branch pipes 18 and 19 and the heating tank 11.

Reference numeral 23 is a control device for controlling the cleaning device as a whole, and a method of circulating hot water under the control of the control device 23 will be described.

When sterilizing the hot water, the switching valve 22 is switched so that the direction of the spout tube 8 is closed and the direction of the branch pipe 19 is opened, and the switching valve 21 is in a closed state. When the pump 7 operates, the hot water 2 in the bathtub 1 is sucked up from the hot water suction pipe 3 and treated in the filtration tank 4, as shown by the arrow, and then the connection pipe 9, the circulation pump 7, and the switching valve 2
2 and the heating pipe 11 into the heating tank 11 via the branch pipe 19.

When the hot water in the heating tank 11 reaches the water level detected by the central water level sensor 15, the switching valve 22 closes the direction of the branch pipe 19 and opens the direction of the hot water pipe 8, and as shown by the arrow in FIG. The hot water is switched so as to flow through the main circulation path 10, and the hot water pumped from the bath 1 is returned to the bath 1 as it is after being processed by the filtration tank 4.

On the other hand, the hot water stored up to the center of the heating tank 11 is detected by the hot water temperature sensor 13 and the heater 12
And heated to a sterilization temperature of 60 to 70 ° C.

Heating is carried out at the above-mentioned sterilization temperature for a sterilization time set in advance by experiments or set by the bather depending on the degree of dirt. When the sterilization is finished, the heater 12 is turned off and the hot water in the sterilization tank 11 is heated to 42 ° C. Return to bath 1 after lowering the bathing temperature to a certain level.

The sterilized hot water is preferably returned to the bath immediately for the next sterilization. For this purpose, it is necessary to lower the temperature of the hot water as soon as possible.

As a method of shortening the time for lowering the hot water from the sterilization temperature to the bathing temperature, the heating tank 11 itself is provided with a cooling device for cooling, or a cooling heat exchanger is provided in the hot water circulation passage to cool the hot water. Although various methods such as a method of adjusting the temperature are conceivable, a method of sending the hot water 2 in the bathtub 1 to the heating tank 11 to cool the hot water 2 in this embodiment will be described.

When the heat sterilization by the heating tank 11 is completed, the switching valve 22 is switched so that the direction of the spout tube 8 is closed and the direction of the branch pipe 19 is opened, and the hot water is circulated again as shown by the arrow in FIG. Upper water level sensor 1 in 11
Pour to the water level detected by 6.

When the water level in the heating tank 11 reaches the position of the upper water level sensor 16, the switching valve 22 is closed in the direction of the branch pipe 19 and opened in the direction of the spout tube 8 to switch the hot water again as shown by the arrow in FIG. While waiting for the hot water in the heating tank 11 to cool down to the bathing temperature, the water is circulated in the main circulation path and treated in the filtration tank 4 and returned to the bath.

When the hot water temperature sensor 13 detects that the hot water temperature in the heating tank 11 has dropped to the bathing temperature, the switching valve 21 is opened and the switching valve 22 is opened at the same time.
The direction is closed, and the direction of the spout tube 8 is kept open.

In this state, the hot water in the heating tank 11 flows into the connecting pipe 9 of the main circulation path 10 through the branch pipe 18 and is pumped up from the bath 1 as shown by the arrow in FIG.
It is returned to the bathtub 1 together with the hot water treated in the filtration tank 4.

When the hot water in the heating tank 11 flows out and it is detected that the bottom water level sensor 14 has reached the water level, the switching valve 21 is closed, the switching valve 22 is switched, and the inside of the bath 1 is again switched as described above. The hot water 2 is put into the heating tank 11 up to the water level detected by the central water level sensor 15, and heat sterilization is performed.

As described above, the switching valve 2 by the control device 23
By switching between 1 and 22, the hot water circulation path is changed and the heat sterilization in the heating tank 11 is repeated.

[0041]

EFFECTS OF THE INVENTION The present invention has the above-mentioned constitution and action, and although it is a batchwise sterilization treatment, it is treated at an extremely short interval as long as the rate of lowering the hot water temperature to the bath temperature after heat sterilization is increased. Therefore, very effective sterilization that is not inferior to continuous treatment such as ozone sterilization can be performed.

Moreover, the apparatus is extremely simple and inexpensive, and it is easy to maintain. Since no chemicals are used, there is no need to worry about any damage to the bather's health.

[Brief description of drawings]

[Fig. 1] Piping diagram (state of hot water flowing into the heating tank),

[Fig. 2] Piping diagram (heat sterilization state),

FIG. 3 is a piping diagram (state of returning heated sterilized hot water to a bathtub).

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Bathtub 2 Hot water 3 Hot water suction pipe 4 Filtration tank 7 Circulation pump 8 Fountain pipe 10 Main circulation path 11 Heating tank 18, 19 Branch pipe 20 Branch pipe path 21, 22 Switching valve 23 Control device

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A bathtub hot water in which the hot water in the bathtub is pumped up by a circulation pump and forcedly circulates in a bathtub hot water circulation passage in which various cleaning treatment equipments are installed to eject the purified hot water again into the bathtub. A cleaning device for bath water, wherein a heating tank for sterilization is provided in a branch line from a main circulation line in which cleaning devices are arranged in series. 2. The hot water circulation path is switched between the main circulation path and the branch pipeline by switching the switching valve under the control of the control device, and the hot water in the heating tank is batch-sterilized by heating and sterilization and then placed in the bathtub. A method for cleaning hot water in a bathtub, which is characterized by returning the water.