US3896508A - Bathing facility - Google Patents

Abstract

The outer side rim of the tub or shower has a rib along the outer, upper margin forming a water seal for sliding doors. The doors are hung from a track in a manner whereby they tend to move outwardly and against the rib. Abutment means is provided at the lower margins of the doors to separate the main bodies of the doors, but otherwise the lower margins of the doors are guided only by the above-described manner of hanging the doors.

Description

United States Patent Doan July 29, 1975 [54] BATHING FACILITY 3,359,573 12/1967 Casebolt 4/149 3,461,466 8/1969 Weaver et a1 4/149 1761 lnvemorl Troy 2090 Alta VSta 3,500,481 3/1970 McKwane 4/149 Vista, Calif- 92083 3,805,450 4/1974 Forcina 49/409 [22 Filed: Mar. 22, 1974 Prtmary Exammer-Robert 1. Sm1th PP 453,778 Attorney, Agent, or Firm-Duane C. Bowen 52 us. c1. 4/149; 49/125; 49/409; [571 ABSTRACT 160/197 The outer side rim of the tub or shower has a rib along [51] Int. Cl E06b 7/02 the outer, upper margin forming a water seal for slid- [58] Field of Search 4/148, 145, 146, 149, 153, ing doors. The doors are hung from a track in a man 4/154, 150; 49/409, 410, 125; 160/197, 193, ner whereby they tend to move outwardly and against 202, 222 the rib. Abutment means is provided at the lower margins of the doors to separate the main bodies of the [56] Referen es Cited doors, but otherwise the lower margins of the doors UNITED STATES PATENTS are guided only by the above-described manner of 2,833,346 5/1958 Preston 160/197 hangmg the doors 3,296,744 1/1967 Hentzi 49/409 10 Claims, 7 Drawing Figures PATENTED JUL 2 9 i975 SHEET FIG.2

PATENTED JUL29 i975 SHEET FIG.7

BATI-IING FACILITY BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION AND OBJECTIVES The invention relates to sliding doors for tubs or showers and, more particularly, to improved means for water sealing and guidance of the lower margins of the doors.

Reference is made to my prior US. Pat. No. 3,783,456, issued Jan. 8, 1974. The purpose of the present invention, as in the case of the prior patent, is to eliminate the metal double-channel conventionally used to guide the lower edges of sliding doors in a bathing facility and also used to provide a water seal. Such metal double-channel has a number of deficiencies including poor appearance, collecting water, being both unsanitary and subject to corrosion, being most'difficult to clean, and being uncomfortable when stepped or sat upon. My prior patent dealt with a new water sealing and guidance system to replace such double channel. The present invention is an improvement over my prior patent by providing a structure which requires no quidance means on the bathing facility rim other than a rib at its outer margin and needing no other hardware on the rim or doors. Instead, guidance according to my present invention may be considered to be integral with the doors. This has a number of advantages, such as simplicity of installation, exposing the full surface of the rim for cleaning, reduced expense of manufacture and installation, etc.

It would be advantageous in some bathing facilities to provide three or more sliding doors, but this is difficult to achieve without three channels or without complex hardware of other types. One objective of the present invention is to provide water sealing and guidance means adapted not only to two doors but also to three or more doors, which still achieves the general purposes of minimizing or avoiding hardware on the tub or shower rim, avoiding cleaning and sanitary problems, achieving a good appearance, etc.

Further objectives of my invention include: (a) to provide improved water sealing and guidance means for the lower margins of sliding doors for tubs and showers; (b) to provide a system for such purpose having a minimum of structure on the rim and providing guidance primarily integrated with the doors and the supporting track means; (c) to provide such a structure with a rim that can be completely cleaned; and (d) to devise such a system which is improved as to economy of manufacture and installation.

My invention will be best understood, together with additional objectives and advantages thereof, from the following description, read with reference to the drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 is an elevational view of the front of a bathing facility closed by sliding doors, which illustrates a type of facility in which my invention has application. The view shows three doors, although my invention also applied to two doors.

FIG. 2 is an end view, fragmentary, enlarged and partly in section, showing a specific embodiment of my invention.

FIG. 3 is an enlarged, fragmentary, end view, partly in section, showing at the lower margins of the doors a modified form of guidance.

FIG. 4 is a top view, in fragmentary form, of the type of structure shown in FIG. 2.

FIG. 5 is an enlarged fragmentary face view of a portion of the lower margin of a door of the type shown in FIG. 2.

FIG. 6 is like FIG. 4 only showing the modification viewed in FIG. 3.

FIG. 7 is like FIG. 5 only showing the modification of structure viewed in FIG. 3.

A common present-day construction of bathing facilities in residences is indicated in FIG. I in which a shower or tub is fitted against a back wall 10 and between two side (full or stub) walls 12. The bathing facility I4 is indicated as being a shower by the low outer wall 16 above floor 18, although the invention applies equally to a tub, in which case wall 16 would be higher, etc., but nothing peculiar to this invention would be affected. A common construction at present is to form the tub or shower of fiber-reinforced plastic, in a onepiece construction also extending part-way up back and side walls 10, 12. The invention would also be applicable to enameled cast-iron or steel bathing facilities, etc., as will be apparent to those skilled in the art, but fiber-reinforced plastic bathing facilities do appear to dominate the market at present.

Discussion of the general nature of bathing facility 14, of the problems with prior channeled metal guides at the bottom of sliding doors for such facilities, etc., will be somewhat herein as these subjects were dis cussed in my prior US. Pat. No. 3,783,456.

According to my invention, upper shower rim 20 may be built substantially flat (with, perhaps, some inward slant for drainage), with the exception of a rib 22 at the outer edge of the rim and extending therealong, which provides a water seal and an abutment limiting outer movement of the sliding doors. Rib 22 can be formed integral with the remainder of rim 20, as depicted. or may be formed separately and secured thereto by adhesive, fasteners, etc. In either case, the function will be the same.

Three shower doors 24, 26, 28 are depicted. My invention also applies to two doors. It would also apply to more than three doors, although four or more doors would be extraordinary. One reason three doors occasionally would be desirable is that they could be opened with all three doors mostly to the right or to the left as viewed in FIG. 1, which would give more room of access to the tub or shower. Additional width of access would be particularly desirable if a narrow shower, for example, were involved, wherein the opening with two doors (exposing nearly 50% of the width) would be somewhat too narrow for convenience, whereas three doors could be opened to nearly two-thirds of the entire width of the bathing facility. I am familiar with three folding doors for a bathing facility, but I am not familiar with three sliding doors, although they might have been used. Three doors presents a special problem in guidance. Of course three bottom channels could be used according to the prior practice of a double-channel for two doors. It is my opinion three channels would be objectionable because of poor appearance, difficulty in cleaning, problems of sanitation and corrosion, etc. If that expedient is considered unsatisfactory, guidance of three doors is a special problem. For example, if guides were used upstanding from rim 20, in the manner of my prior US. Pat. No. 3,783,456 then when the three doors were fully opened, at least one guide would be exposed, which would be undesirable for a number of reasons, i.e., appearance, safety,

door reengagement, etc. As will appear from the following discussion, my present invention is as applicable to three or more doors as to two doors without creating any special problem, and it is possible as a result of my invention that three or more doors may be used more commonly.

The common practice in sliding doors for bathing facilities is to suspend them from an overhead track, and an overhead track 30 is used in the present invention. It will be seen that there is a track member 32, 34, 36 for each door 28, 26, 24. One track member 32 is sup ported on the front wall 40 of the track housing and the other tracks 34, 36 are supported by stub walls 42, 44. Each door has rollers 46. Usually there will be two rollers for each door, attached to the upper edge of the doors in some manner. I have rather symbolically shown the supporting flanges 48. As much of the track, roller and roller support structure can follow common practices, or obviously may be designed a number of ways, I am not making a point of their general constructions. However, there is a primary point of importance to the present invention in the manner of hanging the doors. Observe that the track 32., 34, 36 for each door 28, 26, 24 is offset outwardly of the bathing facility from the general plane of the associated door, so that the lower portions of the doors will tend to swing outwardly toward the rib 22. This means that guidance, restraint or abutment does not have to be provided as to movement of the lower portions of the doors in a direction inwardly of the bathing facility, and only out wardly. In other words, compared with a channel-type guide for a door, the inner flange of the channel would not be needed if a door was hung in this manner as the door would tend to remain in abutment to the other outer flange. In a sense, I have reduced the problem of guidance of the lower portions of the sliding doors to only a matter of guidance from moving too far outwardly.

It would appear from FIGS. 2 and 3 that outward movement of lower portions of the doors was simply a matter of the outermost door 28 abutting against rib 22, door 26 abutting against door 28, and door 24 abutting against door 26. In a sense this is true but in another sense the system is not quite that simple. That point of view of FIGS. 2 and 3 does not take into account the factor seen in FIGS. 1, 4 and 6 that the doors are only occasionally substantially fully overlapping. Another difficulty is that the system doesn't work out very well if doors 24, 26, 28 are in full face abutment.

My system of door hanging involves the principle that if the effective track members for each door are offset outwardly of the bathing facility, the only essential restraint can be one member, a rib 22 in this case that also can serve the dual purpose of a water seal. As viewed in light of my present disclosure, this may not seem to be a particularly difficult concept. However, my prior US. Pat. No. 3,783,456 is witness of how difficult it has been to move from the prior practice of metal channel-type guides in construction in which the tracks were superposed to the doors, to the present construction in which rim is unencumbered by guides with the exception of the outer rib 22. This means the rim can be attractive, easy to clean, etc. As indicated, rib 22 may be made of the same fiberreinforced plastic construction as the remainder of the bathing facility, if a plastic bathing facility is involved, and it might appear that having the lower margin of a metal door riding thereagainst it would be objectionable. This is not necessarily so, but, in any case, door 28 could have a plastic frame or the abutment surface of door 28 could be formed of plastic even though the remainder of the frame of the door were to be metal. Note that in the construction of FIG. 2, the lower margins of the doors are widened at 50 relative to the remainder of the doors. Each door is shown as having the same cross-section, with the idea that uniformity of manufacture may be desirable, but the use of the broadened lower margins 56 includes a portion 52 on the outer side of door 28 which is not necessary functionally as a surface flush with the remainder of the outer surface of door 28 would serve as satisfactory abutment to rib 22 if there is no problem of abrading rib 22. However, one way to provide the broadened lower margins 50 would be to apply strips bonded or otherwise secured to the doors. If these strips were of I plastic, for example, and the doors were metal, portion 52 would then provide a plastic abutting surface to rib 22 as a substitute for a metal abutting surface. Likewise, the portion of broadened lower margin 50 of the innermost door 24 on the inner surface at 54 does not have an abutting function and could be omitted unless uniformity of manufacture were important.

The broadened lower margins on both sides of door 26 at 56, 58, together with the companion portions 60, 62 or doors 24, 28 serve to space the doors apart. This is an important feature and it has proven difficult to conceive of the idea of having the means for spacing the main bodies of the doors formed as integral .portions of the doors, as contrasted to the prior practice of channel guides for spacing doors. Commonly the doors would not be built to close enough tolerances, and with nothing protruding, so that they could have full face abutment and slide past each other without difficulty. By the use of the spacing lower portions 56, 58, 60, 62, the major portions of the faces of the doors are spaced apart and abutment only occurs at the lower margins. As indicated relative to marginal portion 52, portions 56, 58, 60, 62 could be either integral, or could be added on strips, such as plastic strips added to metal doors. it is believed they would work satisfactorily as integral metal parts in the case of metal frames, as they should guide along against each other satisfactorily with reasonable manufacturing tolerances, without undue noise or abrasion. As implicit from FIG. 3, the broadened margins could be only on either side of each door, instead of on both sides, in a manner similar to the disposition of button guides or spacers in FIG. 3. It will be understood from FIGS. 4 and 5 that the widened marginal portions 50 extend across the complete lower margin of each door.

FIGS. 3, 6 and '7 indicate the use of button-type spacers or abutments 70, that can be at a single location on each door, as a substitute for the full marginal widening of the lower margins of the doors shown at 50 in FIGS. 2, 4 and 5. I dont mean to be particularly restrictive for the purpose of this specification and the claims by describing this form of spacer as button-like, but a round spacer would be applicable. The point is merely that each spacer 70 does not need to extend along the full lower margin '72 of the associated door. If these are used, the system shown in FIG. 6 is applicable, in which handles for the doors act as abutments to keep them in the right series. For example, if the abutment 70 between doors 26 and 28 were at the opposite end relative to door 26 this would not be workable but, on the other hand, it does not matter whether that abutment is attached to door 26 or 28. The same applies similarly to the abutment 70 between doors 24 and 26.

Some form of abutment is needed to keep the doors 24, 26, 28 serially in the order depicted. For example, if in FIG. 4 or FIG. 6 door 26 could be disposed completely to the left and doors 28, 24 were to be disposed completely at the right, then the system of guidance of door 28 to rib 22, door 26 to door 28, and door 24 to door 26 would no longer apply. As it is common to provide handles 80 for doors, these can be used as abutments to prevent the series from being disrupted. For example, in FIGS. 4 and 6 if someone tried to move intermediate door 26 to the left of door 28, the handle 80 on the inner side of door 28 would interfere with this. Likewise if it were attempted to move door 26 to the right of door 24 as viewed (or to move door 24 to the left of door 26 as viewed), the handle 80 on the inner side of door 24 would interfere with this being accomplished. Note that the handle 80 on the outside of door 28 or the towel bar 82 on the inside of door 24 do not have this abutment function. If a pair of doors (as distinguished from three or more doors) were built in the manner shown in FIGS. 2, 4 and 5, it would not matter functionally whether a door were at the right or left.

The operation of my invention will be understood from the foregoing description but the briefly review it, my new system of guiding the lower margins of doors in bathing facilities includes the use of an outer rib 22 on rim 20, track members 32, 34, 36 offset outwardly of the bathing facility 14 relative to the planes of doors 28, 26, 24, and the use of spacing means between the doors and perhaps between the outermost door and rib 22. In the case of three doors, the restraint in positioning represented by some of the handles 80 also becomes important. It will be observed that this construction permits completely cleaning rim 20, the appearance is excellent, problems of sanitation and corrosion are avoided, this is an economical construction both in manufacture and installation, etc. My construction is thoroughly applicable to three or more doors as well as two doors.

Having thus described my invention, I do not wish to be understood as limiting myself to the exact details of construction shown. Instead I wish to cover these modifications thereof which will occur to those skilled in the art after learning of my disclosure and which are properly within the scope of my invention.

I claim:

1. The improvement in a bathing facility having an outer rim on one side and at least two lapping doors mounted above said rim and a single horizontal rib extending along the outer upper margin of said rim substantially above the remainder of the top of said rim, each door being hung depending from a track of track means, each door having roller means to travel on the associated track which supports the door in movement therealong, comprising:

a. each track being located outwardly of the bathing facility relative to the plane of the associated door so that the lower margins of said doors will tend to swing outwardly and against said rib, and

b. abutment means acting on said lower margins of said doors, spacing said doors apart.

2. The subject matter of claim 1 in which there are at least three lapped doors and said abutment means is integral with said doors and is independent from said rim.

3. The subject matter of claim 1 in which said abutment means is part of said doors and independent from said rim including first abutment means on the outermost of said lapping doors extending beyond the normal plane of the outermost door and bearing on said rib and including second abutment means acting between said outermost door and the next door to space them apart and extending from and beyond the normal plane of at least one door to bear on the other door.

4. The subject matter of claim 3 in which at least one of said first and second abutment means has the form of a button-like projection from the associated door.

5. The subject matter of claim 3 in which at least one of said first and second abutment means has the form of a full lower marginal projection from edge to edge of the associated door.

6. The subject matter of claim 5 in which said full lower marginal projection is a symmetrical thickening of the lower margin of said associated door resulting in projection from both faces of that door.

7. The subject matter of claim 1 in which there are first, second and third lapped doors in sequence in a direction from outside to inside of said bathing facility.

8. The subject matter of claim 7 in which said abutment means is part of said doors and independent from said rim including first abutment means on said first door extending beyond the normal plane of said first door and bearing on said rib and second and third abutment means acting between said first and second doors and between said second and third doors respectively, each of said second and third abutment means extending from and beyond the normal plane of at least one door to bear on an adjacent door.

9. The subject matter of claim 8 in which at least one of said first, second and third abutment means has the form of a button-like projection from the associated door.

10. The subject matter of claim 8 in which at least one of said first, second and third abutment means has the form of a full lower marginal projection from edge to edge of the associated door.

Claims (10)

1. The improvement in a bathing facility having an outer rim on one side and at least two lapping doors mounted above said rim and a single horizontal rib extending along the outer upper margin of said rim substantially above the remainder of the top of said rim, each door being hung depending from a track of track means, each door having roller means to travel on the associated tract which supports the door in movement therealong, comprising: a. each track being located outwardly of the bathing facility relative to the plane of the associated door so that the lower margins of said doors will tend to swing outwardly and against said rib, and b. abutment means acting on said lower margins of said doors, spacing said doors apart.

2. The subject matter of claim 1 in which there are at least three lapped doors and said abutment means is integral with said doors and is independent from said rim.

3. The subject matter of claim 1 in which said abutment means is part of said doors and independent from said rim including first abutment means on the outermost of said lapping doors extending beyond the normal plane of the outermost door and bearing on said rib and including second abutment means acting between said outermost door and the next door to space them apart and extending from and beyond the normal plane of at least one door to bear on the other door.

4. The subject matter of claim 3 in which at least one of said first and second abutment means has the form of a button-like projection from the associated door.

5. The subject matter of claim 3 in which at least one of said first and second abutment means has the form of a full lower marginal projection from edge to edge of the associated door.

6. The subject matter of claim 5 in which said full lower marginal projection is a symmetrical thickening of the lower margin of said associated door resulting in projection from both faces of that door.

7. The subject matter of claim 1 in which there are first, second and third lapped doors in sequence in a direction from outside to inside of said bathing facility.

8. The subject matter of claim 7 in which said abutment means is part of said doors and independent from said rim including first abutment means on said first door extending beyond the normal plane of said first door and bearing on said rib and second and third abutment means acting between said first and second doors and between said second and third doors respectively, each Of said second and third abutment means extending from and beyond the normal plane of at least one door to bear on an adjacent door.

9. The subject matter of claim 8 in which at least one of said first, second and third abutment means has the form of a button-like projection from the associated door.

10. The subject matter of claim 8 in which at least one of said first, second and third abutment means has the form of a full lower marginal projection from edge to edge of the associated door.

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