IMPROVED VENT FOR WINDOWS AND LIKE APERTURES

Abstract: A vent (9) is provided for securement to the top outer periphery (10B) of a frame member (10) of a window (or other aperture) and comprises a duct assembly (11A, 11B, 11C) preferably made by an extrusion process (e.g. plastics extrusion). The front end of the duct assembly includes a lateral flange (18) which can be in the form of a downstand or drip, and the flange (18) carries a sealing element (34) to sealingly engage the front vertical surface (10A) of the window frame member (10): consequently the need for a seal between the top edge (10B) of the frame (10) and the duct bottom surface (13) can be avoided so facilitating the fitment of the vent to frames (10) having top edges (10B) of different profile. The vent bottom surface (13) can be substantially planar. The vent assembly can comprise interchangeable parts.

Description: "Improved vent for windows and like apertures Description The present invention relates to a vent for a window or like aperture such as for example a doorway. More particularly the present invention relates to a vent of the type which is fittable as a separate independent unit along an edge of a window frame or other aperture and which comprises an elongate duct member provided with an air inlet at one elongate side and an air outlet at the other side, securing means being provided for securing the duct member to the edge of the window or other aperture. Such a vent is described and claimed in the present applicants UK Patent Application No. 8712477 (Published No. 2194638A It is an object of the present invention to provide a vent of the above type which has versatile application whiLe being economic to manufacture. According to one aspect of the present invention a vent for use at a window or other aperture comprises a duct member which is fitted as a separate independent unit at an edge of the window or aperture; said duct member having a seal support member, projecting laterally from the duct member, and sealing element supported by said seal support member so as to be engageable with a vertical side surface of a frame member at the window or aperture. Preferably the seal support member is positioned at the front end of the duct member and can take the form of a flange or downstand nose or drip. The flange preferably includes an inwardly turned lip which also avoids capillarity attraction of moisture. Preferably the sealing element is of rectanguLar cross-section but other shapes are possible eg. round and can be made of a suitable synthetic resinous plastics material such as neoprene. The sealing element is preferably bonded to the seal support member. According to another aspect of the present invention a vent for fitting as a separate independent unit at a window or other aperture, such as for example a doorway, comprises a vent asssembly including a main duct body, and nose and outlet portions on either side of said main duct body, at least one of said nose and outlet portions being in the form of a separate interchangeable unit, and joining means for the connection of said one portion to the main duct body. Preferably the joining means comprises a slotted male-femal interconnection. Said male-female interconnection preferably includes a clip-on facility. Preferably the outlet portion includes an air flow control device including apertured plate means so as to provide for example a hit and miss type control. Fittable end covers can be provided to close the ends of the vent assembly and each end cover preferably includes a Lateral surface serving to overlap said apertured plate means. Preferably control elements extend laterally from the apertured plate means to facilitate operating movements of the apertured plate means for airflow reguLation by the control device. An optional cord control can be fitted to said control elements and preferably the end cover includes guide means for said cord control. Preferably a sound insulating baffle member is housed in said duct (or vent assembly) and can comprise a ribbed base with a top plate mounted on said ribbed base. Embodiments of the present invention will now be described by way of example with reference to the accompanying drawings wherein: Fig. 1 shows a cross-sectional end view of a vent in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention, mounted on the head of a window frame; Fig. 2 shows a cross-sectional end view of a different embodiment; Fig. 3 shows an exploded isometric view of parts of the vent of Fig. 1; Fig. 4 shows an end view of a closure end cap for the vent of Fig. 1; Fig. 5 shows an isometric view of the end cap of Fig. 4; Fig. 6 shows in cross-sectional side view a sound insulating baffle member for the vent; Fig. 7 shows a plan view of part of the base portion of the baffle of Fig. 6; Fig. 8 shows an isometric view of parts of the baffle of Fig. 6; Fig. 9 shows a further isometric view of the vent of Fig. 1 particularly indicating the fitting of an end cap and the baffle; Fig. 10 shows a plan view of an alternative baffle arrangement; Fig. 11 is an elevation of the top part of a window with the vent of Fig. 1 installed; and Fig. 12 shows a cross sectional end view of a vent for a window, in accordance with another embodiment of the present invention. Referring to Figs. 1 to 11, a top vent 9 is provided for a window 1 (see Fig. 11) which in the conventional way comprises a wooden outer frame 2 supporting the sash 3, the window 1 being set into a wall structure between side walls, head lintels and bottom sill. The vent 9 constitutes a separate independent unit which is secured to the head 10 of the window, especially after completion of the window but before the window is offered up to the wall aperture and comprises three parts, namely a main conduit part 11A and a nose 11B and an outlet (or control) part 11C on respective sides of the main conduit part 11A. The main conduit 11A comprises a general box form construction with open ends and a plain interior, the sides 24A, 22A of the conduit 11A defining an air inlet and an air outlet respectively carrying a series of apertures 50, 51 for lateral airflow through the conduit 11A. The nose 118 and the control sections 11C are joined to the main conduit 11A, by male-female interconnections 52, 53, 54 and 55 and these interconnections are adapted for snap-fitting The nose 118 comprises a downwardly angled canopy portion 17 and a downwardly directed flange or nose/drip 18 joined to the portion 17 by a horizontal apertured wall 56, the flange 18 including an inwardly turned lip 18A. An elongate sealing strip 14 of rectangular cross-section or other shapes is supported by the flange 18; and the strip 14 can be of suitable synthetic resinous material such as neoprene. The control section 11C shown in Fig. 1 is of channel form and has an apertured bottom wall 22 with opposed groove 57A, 578 adjacent the wall 22 wherein an apertured control plate 21 is slidable. The wall 22 and plate 21 define control means for airflow through the vent 9 operating on a hit-or-miss basis depending on whether or not the apertures of the wall 22 and the plate 21 are in alignment. Movement of the plate 21 is facilitated by gripper elements 23 which have a base 23A generally complementary to an aperture of the plate 21 so that the element 23 can be press fitted into the plate 21. Like the conduit 11A both the nose 118 and the control section 11C are open ended. The interconnection 51 comprises a tongue 51A and slot 51B joint whereas the other three interconnections 52-54 are of the bead 58 in groove 59 type. The conduit 11A, nose 118 and section 11C defining a unit are made from suitable metal or plastics material and can be cut in suitable lengths from a continuous length mouldings or extrusions, this Latter feature considerably facilitating the use of the vent 9 in a wide variety of different sized windows. Longitudinal grooves in the nose 11A serve to receive a gauze (fly) screen 24. The open ends of the combined unit 11A-11C are closed by left and right handed end closure caps 15 the right hand one of which is shown in Figs. 4 and 5. Thus the cap 15 comprises a recessed base part 60 carrying a set of lugs or tongues 61 engaging with the interior corners of the main conduit 11A, a tongue 62 to locate the canopy portion 17of nose 11A and a channel form lug 63 locating the control section 11C. Further the base part 60 presents a laterally directed tab plate 64 on which an end of the air control plate 21 is slidable, the tab plate 61 serving to close off a respective end portion of the air flow control 21/22 so that effective air flow control is always possible from zero to maximum rates irrespective of the cut Length of the unit 11A-11C. A stopper block 65 is housed in the base 60 of one side end cap only to set the movement of the control plate 21. Conveniently a downstand bracket 66 is carried by the plate 64, a hole 67 being present in the bracket 66 for the through-passage of a supplementary control cord 68 fitted to a respective element 23 as shown in Fig. 11; as will be appreciated the control cord 68 will considerably facilitate the operation of the air control 21/22 from a lower level. A removable sound insulating baffle unit or cartridge 69 (Figs. 6 to 8) is housed in the main conduit 11A and comprises a base part 70 having thereon upstanding chevron form walls 71, and a top block 72 mounted on the walls 71 whereby enclosed undulating air passages 3 are present in the unit 69, the walls 71 causing deflection of sound waves in a plane parallel to the base part 70 as shown by the arrows in Fig. 7. Air can pass from the apertures 50 through the air passages 73 to the apertures 51. As can be seen in Fig. 7 the horizontal deflection arrangement enables a substantial deflection d of the sound waves, the greater the degree of deflection the greater the attenuation of sound, so that the vent 9 can have relativeLy small depth: the same sound attenuation via vertical sound wave deflection would necessitate a much deeper vent 9 and this would lead to a less aesthetically satisfying vent structure and a vent structure which would be more difficult to install. The unit 69 will contribute to the strength and rigidity of the main conduit 11A and will be made from suitable lightweight insulating material. The base 70 and top block 72 can be formed by cutting suitable sized portions from continuous lengths of shaped materials. The walls 71 could of course take a different shape: thus Fig. 10 shows walls 71 of different planar profile (in Fig. 10 the thin line arrows indicate the air flow path while the wider arrows show sound wave deflection). Further, an additional sound insulating unit 69A could be located in the control section 11C. In the Fig. 1 embodiment the air flow control 22/23 is arranged horizontally, while in the modified vent of Fig. 2 the control 22/23 is arranged vertically: it will be noted however that the horizontal control 22/23 of Fig. 1 provides a maximum discharge area which is greater than that of the vertical control of Fig. 2. -It is of course possible for the control 22/23 to have some other shape than that shown, for example, quarter round, and the control could discharge the ventilating air in some further alternative direction. Prior to fitting on the window frame 1, the vent 9 is fully assembled, complete with end caps 15 and the sound insulating cartridge unit or units, if required, the nose 118 having been fitted to conduit 11A by firstly placing the tongue 51A in the slot 51B then snapping the bead 58 into the groove 59 while control section 11C is fitted by a straight snap fit of the interconnections 53, 54. The vent 1 is then placed on the window head 10 and pushed inwards (ie. rightwards in Fig. 1) to compress the seal 14 against the outer wall 10A of the head 10 and inward movement is arrested by the lip 18A engaging the wall 10A - the outer edge of the lip 18A is set back from the free surface of the seal 14 (see Fig. 2 ) by a predetermined amount to control the achievable compression on seal 14 and also to prevent capillarity attraction of moisture - and in this compressed position the vent 9 is secured to the head 10 by means of screws 16 (Fig. 9) passing through screwholes 16A in the conduit 11A. The window 1 with vent 9 in place is now offered up to the window aperture in the building wall and the window surround construction completed so that the vent 9 is located between the building head lintel and the window frame head 10. The above vent 9 of the present invention has the following advantages:1) The vent in the standard form shown in Fig. 1 (or Fig. 2) will be capable of universal application to all or virtually all forms of window frame without the need to alter or modify the window frame or glass and without the need for modifications to the vent, in particular the need for replacement or adjustment of the seal 14. This results from the fact that the seal 14 is arranged to engage the front wall 10A of the head 10 rather than the head top surface 10B. The front wall 10A is virtually always of a substantially flat form so that an effective seating surface is present for the seal 14. The profile of the top surface 10B on the other hand can vary quite substantially from frame to frame due to the different grooving etc. applied to this wall 10B. This latter fact makes it difficult for the one seal form to provide effective sealing on the top surface for all window frames. As can be seen the frame 2 of Fig. 1 is bevelled at the top corners (ie. between walls 1OA/1OB > but nevertheless the depth of the seal 14 accommodates this bevel so that sealing effectiveness is maintained. The flat form of the bottom wall 13 of the conduit 11A ensures that the conduit 11A can sit stabily on the head 10 for most profiLes of surface 10B. The inwardly turned lip 18A will increase the effectiveness of the front seal 14 and avoid capillarity attraction of moisture between the window frame and vent. Z. Different forms of noses 11B and control sections 11C of different form and colour can be readily fitted to the main conduit ?lea. Thus the nose 11B could be for example of aluminium to match a particular window system or colour, the main conduit 11A of plastics material eg. PVC to avoid cold bridging while the control section 11C could be in another material and/or colour if desired to suit interior decor. The overall width (front to back) of the vent 9 could be readily changed by the provision of a wider section 11C so that the vent 9 will be readily adaptable for use with windows having a deeper frame: in this case the control 22/23 would occupy only a portion of the section bottom in comparison with Fig. 1. It is preferred that there is an overhang to accommodate an interior bead 28. 3. The nose 11B can be fairly readily removed even when the window with vent is installed, simply by releasing the interconnections 51, 52. This permits access to clean the fly (or insect) screen 24 or to interchange the nose 11B if a different shape or colour is required after a period of use. The seal 14 could also be readily replaced. Similarly the control section liC could also be changed for example to match a new interior decor. The window vent of Fig. 12 is closely similar to the vent of Fig. 1 and like parts carry like reference numerals. However, in this case the main conduit llA is made initially in open form (eg by extrusion ie as an open channel base 13A) and is closed, when the parts llA, 11B, 11C of the vent are assembled, by virtue of a top wall 33 of the tail section llC extending over the open channel base, the wall 33 including an additional bead 53A for snap fitting in male/female fashion at the front end of conduit 11A. Therefore the bulk of the parts of vent 9 can be of open channel form and none need be of closed-box form: this considerably conveniences the manufacture of the parts especially where an extrusion process is involved. Also a sealing strip 34 of hollow cylindrical section is used (the non compressed strip state is shown dashed) differing from the previous strip section, and the strip 34 has a T-head received in a complementary slot in the flange 18.

Claims: CLAIMS: 1. A vent for use at a window or other aperture comprising a duct member lA - llC) which is fitted as a separate independent unit at an edge of the window (10) or aperture; characterised in that said duct member (ilA - 11C) has a seal support member (18), projecting laterally from the duct member (llB) and a sealing element (14) supported by said seal support member (18) so as to be engageable with a vertical side surface (10A) of a frame member (10) at the window or aperture. 2. A vent as claimed in claim 1, charaterised in that the seal support member (18) is positioned at the front end of the duct member (llB) and takes the form of a flange or downstand nose or drip. 3. A vent as claimed in claim 1 or 2, characterised in that the duct member (lea) has a substantially planar bottom surface (13) for location over a top surface (lOB) of a frame member (10). ' 4. A vent as claimed in claim 2, characterised in that the flange (18) includes an inwardly turned lip (18A). 5. A vent as claimed in any one of the preceding claims, characterised in that the sealing element (14) is of rectangular cross-section (and can be made of a suitable synthetic resinous plastics material such as neoprene) and is bonded to the seal support member (18). 6. A vent as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 3, characterised in that the sealing element (34 Fig. 12) includes a profiled base part located in a complementary shaped housing on the seal support member (18). 7. A vent as claimed in claim 6, characterised in that the sealing element (34) has a resilient head part of circular cross-sectional profile for sealing engagement with the vertical side surface (10A) of a frame member. 8. A vent for fitting as a separate independent unit at a window or other aperture comprising a vent assembly including a main duct body (11A) and nose (11B) and outlet portions (110) on either side of said main duct body (11A), characterised in that at least one of said nose and outlet portions (11B, 11C) is in the form of a separate interchangeable unit, joining means (51 - 54) being provided for the connection of said inter changeable unit to the main duct body (11A). 9. A vent as claimed in any one of the preceding claims, characterised in that the vent is made of par-s (13A, 17, Fig. 12) which are of an open channel form but which fit to gether to form a hollow form duct member (11A, 11B, 11C). 10. A vent as claimed in claim 8 or 9, characterised in that the parts or portions of the duct members (11A - 11C) are joined together by joining means comprising slotted male-female interconnections (51 - 54). 11. A vent as claimed in claim 10, characterised in that said male-female interconnections (51 - 54) include a clip-on facility. 12. A vent as claimed in any one of claims 8 to 11 characterised in that the outlet portion (110) of the duct member (110) includes an air flow control (22A) in the form of an apertured plate means (22, 24). 13. A vent as claimed in claim 12, characterised in that fittable end covers (15) are provided to close the ends of the vent assembly and each end cover (15) includes a lateral surface (64) serving to overlap said apertured plate means (22, 24). 14. A vent as claimed in claim 13, characterised in that a remote control mechanism, for example in the form of a cord control (22A), is provided for the air flow control (22A) and includes control elements (23) on the aperture plate means (22, 24) and guide means (66) on the lateral surfaces (64) of the end covers (15). 15. A vent as claimed in any one of the preceding claims, characterised in that a sound insulating baffle member (69) is housed in said duct (or vent assembly) and comprises a ribbed base (70).

Inventors: HAMILTON JOHN GEORGE, HAMILTON, JOHN, GEORGE
Applicants: HAMILTON JOHN GEORGE, HAMILTON, JOHN, GEORGE
Application year: 1988
Main classification: E06B7
IPC codes: E06B7