Abstract:
A transition support for flooring extending between a floor area of a high height and a floor area of a low height, said support being in the shape of a wedge which is generally unnoticeable by persons walking across the support and which does not jostle wheeled vehicles crossing the support.

Description:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION  
         [0001]    1. Field of the Invention  
           [0002]    This invention relates to supporting flooring at the juncture of materials of different heights, at the transition at the juncture between the materials, where the transition is generally unnoticeable to people walking on flooring over the juncture or where wheeled vehicles will not be jostled or upset when crossing transition at the juncture.  
           [0003]    2. Description of the Prior Art  
           [0004]    There is often a juncture in floors made of made of different materials, since the floor often has areas of different heights. In may institutions, factories exhibitions halls, shopping malls and transportation facilities and the like, floors of hard materials such as tile, marble, granite, brick, guarry stone or ceramic are frequently adjacent to floors of concrete or wood. The adjacent floors usually meet at a juncture, and there is an interface between the floor area of the relatively high height and the floor area of a relatively low height. Transition flooring is often put over the floor areas to make it easier and safer to walk across the floor areas and the juncture, and to make it easier for wheeled vehicles to traverse the juncture of the floor areas. It is common to ramp up to the higher floor area made of hard materials.  
           [0005]    However, the transition flooring, which can be flexible vinyl or rubber based sheet or tiles, or a carpet material, or a hardened resilient material such as vinyl composition or hard rubber tiles must cross the juncture. If no transition support is provided, there could be a sharp incline in the flooring at the juncture. People could trip or at least be surprised when they step on the flooring at the juncture, especially if they are unaware that the difference in heights exists. In addition, wheeled vehicles could be jostled, tipped or possibly overturned if they reach an unexpected abrupt change in the heights of the flooring. Moveover, the transition flooring could become frayed, cracked or torn over time, especially if the juncture is in an area of high traffic.  
           [0006]    In most instances in commercial buildings where the sharp transition between floor materials of different heights is made more gradual, a worker uses a trowel to lay by hand cementious material such as a latex underlayment at the juncture between the high and low flooring levels. This is time consuming and expensive, and the time to lay the material depends on the ability and skill of the troweler. Once the troweler has laid the cementious material, he or she uses adhesive to connect the flooring material to the cementious material. In other cases, workers stack old tile to reduce the steepness of the juncture between the adjacent flooring areas.  
           [0007]    The difference in height between the two areas of the floor as discussed above are often not great, often around ¼ inch, so the problem has not been previously and seriously addressed. Architects have no standard for addressing the problem. Compensating for the difference in heights between adjacent flooring areas is a real problem.  
           [0008]    There are various patents which have been issued relating to the support of carpets near walls, including U.S. Pat. Nos. 530,096 (Eckman 1894), 1,070,273 (MacLean 1913), 1,401,490 (Rathjens 1921), 1,483,941 (Kasson 1924) 1,833,732 (Barrows 1931), 1,988,603 (McLaren et al. 1935), 2,677,145 (Adams 1954), 3,086,262 (Krantz 1963) and 4,187,656 (Lutz 1980).  
           [0009]    However, the foregoing patents are not directed to the support of flooring at the juncture between adjacent floor areas of different heights, U.S. Pat. No. 1,128,061 (Schroeter 1915) is directed to metal edge binding in linoleum, which is also not a problem to which the present invention relates. U.S. Pat. No. 5,574,953 relates to an edge molding strip for protecting the floor covering between first and second floors of different heights, but it relates to the objects of the present invention in only a very general way. U.S. Pat. No. 5,243,798 provides a wedge shaped finishing member for draining water away from a bathtub, and it too is not directed to the problems to which the invention is directed.  
         SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION  
         [0010]    It is an object of the present invention to provide a support for flooring covering floor areas of different heights.  
           [0011]    Another object of the invention is to provide a support for flooring, such as those having vinyl or rubber components or those made of carpeting, which cover the juncture of flooring areas made of different materials and have different heights.  
           [0012]    An additional object is, to provide a support for hard flooring, such as hard resilient flooring like vinyl composition or hard rubber tiles, for covering the juncture of flooring areas made of materials having different heights.  
           [0013]    A further object of the present invention is to provide a transition support for flexible sheet flooring at the juncture of floors made of ceramic or tile, and floors made of concrete or wood, where there is a difference in heights between the two sections of the floor.  
           [0014]    Yet another object of the invention is to provide a transition support for flooring as described above, which is generally unnoticeable to person walking across the support or which does not jostle wheeled vehicles crossing the support.  
           [0015]    An object is to provide a transition support for flooring areas of different heights which can be installed by workers who need not be highly skilled in laying transition supports.  
           [0016]    A still further object of the invention is to provide a transition support as described above which can be made in large economical quantities, and which can be installed quickly, economically and effectively in large institutional buildings such as schools and hospitals, office buildings, factories, shopping malls and other stores, exhibitions halls transportation facilities and the like.  
           [0017]    According to the preferred embodiment of the invention, a transition support (which is also called a patch board or leveler strip) has a wedge shaped construction. It is made of a flexible plastic such as vinyl and has a thick end portion, a parallel thin end portion, and a tapering section which extends from the upper portion of the thick end to the thin end. Alternatively, it can be a hard material such as vinyl composition or hard rubber tiles. (The sections will be described as if the transition support is in place, with an upper section and a lower section). The contour of the tapering section is very slight, so that walkers crossing the transition support, especially when it is covered with a flooring, will not be aware of its presence, Likewise, carts, motor driven carriers, dollies, wheeled stretchers, wheeled carrying cases, and other wheeled vehicles will not be jostled or upset when they cross the transition support for the flooring supported thereby.  
           [0018]    These and other objects will become apparent from the following description of a preferred embodiment taken together with the accompanying drawings and the appended claims. 
       
    
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS  
       [0019]    The invention may take physical form in certain parts and arrangement of parts, a preferred embodiment of which will be described in detail in the specification and illustrated in the accompanying drawings which form a part hereof, and wherein:  
         [0020]    [0020]FIG. 1 is a perspective view of the transition support according to the preferred embodiment of the invention, installed for supporting a flexible sheet flooring.  
         [0021]    [0021]FIG. 2 is a side view of the transition support shown in FIG. 1.  
         [0022]    [0022]FIG. 3 is a plan view of the transition support shown in FIG. 1.  
         [0023]    [0023]FIG. 4 is a bottom view of the transition support shown in FIG. 1  
         [0024]    [0024]FIG. 5 is a side view of transition supports stacked in tandem  
         [0025]    [0025]FIG. 6 is a perspective view of the stacked transition supports shown in FIG. 5. 
     
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT  
       [0026]    Referring now to the drawings wherein the showings are for the purpose of illustrating the preferred embodiment of the invention only, and not for the purpose of limiting same, FIG. 1 shows a transition support  1  in perspective. It is located on a concrete floor  2  which is adjacent to another floor  4 . A set of tiles  6  are located on floor  4 . Tiles  6  could be of vinyl, rubber, ceramic or any other composition. Tiles  6  could be replaced by any other type of floor, provided for the present discussion that their top surface  8  is above or below the top surface  10  of floor  2 . Tiles  6  are shown above floor  2 . A juncture  12  exists between flooring  2 , and the flooring  4  and tiles  6 .  
         [0027]    A flexible sheet flooring  14 , shown in phantom lines, lies on floor  2 , on transition support  1 , and on and tiles  6 . Flooring  14  could be harder, and less flexible or inflexible. Transitions support  1  rests on flooring  2 , and support  1  has a thick end  16  and a thin end  18 . Thick end  16  is generally equal to the difference in height between the lower floor area (area  2  in the present example), and the higher floor area (area  4  and tile  6  in the present example). For this discussion, the heights of floor  2  and floor  4  are the same (and they could be the same floor), so thick end  16  is shown equal to the thickness of tiles  6 . The thickness of thick end  16  need not exactly equal the difference in height between the two adjacent floor areas, since support  1  can be flexible and resilient, so the transition between the heights will not be noticeable.  
         [0028]    Transition support  1  has a tapering section  20  extending between thick end  16  and thin end  18 . Tapering section  20  has a top surface  22  and a bottom surface  24 , as shown in FIGS.  2 - 4 . The tapering surface should be of sufficient distance between thick section  16  and thick section  18  so that one crossing support  1  on foot or with a wheeled vehicle would not notice transition support  1 , or the vehicle would not be jostled or upset. In the preferred embodiment, thick section  16  was ¼ inch thick and thin section  18  was disposed 12 inches from thick section  16 , and the interior angle between top surface  22  and bottom surface  24  was 3°. The thickness at the thick end should not exceed {fraction (3/16)} inches. The maximum angle for other preferred versions of the invention should not exceed 10°, and the minimum angle should be less than 1°. The width, or distance between the thick end  16  and the thin end  18  should generally be between 10 inches and 20 inches.  
         [0029]    In order to secure support  1  on a floor such as floor  2 , an appropriate adhesive can be used. In order to promote the strength of the adhesive, slight ridges  26  or other physical changes in bottom surface  24  are provided to hold the adhesive as well as to improve the friction between support  1  and the floor. Likewise, ridges  28  are provided on the top surface of support  1 . An effective set of ridges has been found to be about 10 ridges per inch and to be less than 1 mm in height. Flooring  14  is preferably secured to support  1  with an appropriate adhesive, and ridges  28  both hold the adhesive in place and increase friction between flooring  14  and support  1 . The ridges could be replaced with grooves. Other forms of physical variations in surfaces  22  and  24  are available.  
         [0030]    Transition  1  can be flexible sheet flooring prepared in roll form or in long sheets, with the thick and thin end portions being the side surfaces. The appropriate length is cut from the roll, or one or more sheets (or parts of sheets) are selected. The thickness of the thick end  16  should generally equal the difference in height between the two flooring areas. Adhesive is spread in the floor of the lower floor area as far from the juncture as support  1  will extend, on bottom surface  24  of support  1 , or in the floor and the bottom surface, and the support  1  is laid in place. Adhesive is then put in top surface  26  of support  1 , on the sheet flooring  15 , or on both, and flooring  14  is then placed on support  1 . The system is ready for use once the adhesive has dried or cured, if necessary.  
         [0031]    In some situations, it may be necessary to decrease the slope of the tapered section of the transition support, as where the high floor requires a wider transition support. This can be accomplished by stacking transition support  1  in tandem that is by stacking them like shingles. Referring to FIG. 5, a transition support  1  is placed on floor  2 , and by an appropriate adhesive. A second support  1  is adhered to support  1 , but located on tapered section  22  of support  1 , where it is glued in place. The thin end  18 ′ of support  1 ′ is located further from floor  4  than thin end  18  of support  1 . The upper part  30 , shown in dotted lines, is severed from support  1 ′. This can be accomplished by using a blade, cutting part way into support  1 ′ at line  32 , and then bending and severing part  30  from support  1 ′. The final product is shown in perspective in FIG. 6, with the ridges omitted for the sake of clarity.  
         [0032]    Transition support  1  is preferably made from vinyl or rubber composite so that it will have the desired flexibility and resilience. Harder materials may work in some situations, including polyethylene, polyester, recycled plastic, vinyl mixed with fillers such as limestone, vinyl composition and plastic-like materials.  
         [0033]    The foregoing description is a specific embodiment of the present invention. It should be appreciated that this embodiment is described for purposes of illustration only, and that numerous alterations and modifications may be practiced by those skilled in the art without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. It is intended that all such modifications and alterations be included insofar as they come within the scope of the invention as claimed or the equivalents thereof.