Abstract:
A rooftop electrical boot for electrical service entrance to a building is described which allows it to be installed on a building without the electric power to the building being shut off and without the need to hire an electrician to connect or to disconnect electric power lines to the building. This goal is achieved with a boot containing a sealable slit that allows access to the electric conduit hole of the boot from outside the boot&#39;s base without the need to thread power lines through the hole itself.

Description:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION  
       [0001]     This invention relates to the general art category of roof construction and roof repair. This invention relates more specifically to materials for preparing roofs for electrical service entrances to buildings. To be more precise, this invention is a rooftop electrical boot, meant primarily to be a rooftop replacement boot for electrical service entrance for buildings, although this invention can also be used as a new rooftop electrical boot.  
         [0002]     A standard rooftop electrical boot is a single piece of flexible rubber molded to have a flat base from which rises an oval protuberance the top of which has hole in it. The rooftop electrical boot is used to make a watertight seal or barrier around a pipe through which electric power cables or wires are run into a building. Such rooftop electrical boots are usually surrounded by roof shingles, which also must provide a watertight seal for the roof, particularly in the location where the electrical boot is placed.  
         [0003]     When replacing shingles on a roof in the area of the electrical service entrance, the existing old boot must be carefully removed from the shingles. Because the electrical wires are threaded through the hole of the boot, to replace a boot or to apply a new boot to a roof, the electric power to the entire building must be shut off first by the electric power company. An electrician must be employed to remove the wires and service head so a new or replacement boot can be put on the roof. This is a very expensive and cumbersome process which may cost a few hundred dollars, and all because the standard boot is topologically threaded through its hole by wire, and cannot be unthreaded, replacement threaded, or newly threaded without either destroying the electrical boot or without the aid of the power company and an electrician who must also shut off the power to the building to do the job.  
         [0004]     Destruction of a standard electrical boot is not a big issue as such standard boots usually cost less than $10. However, applying a new boot still requires the cumbersome and expensive power company and electrician intervention, even thought the new boot, again, is itself inexpensive. Thus, the main problem with stand rooftop electrical boots is that separating the boot from the wire can only be accomplished by destroying the boot or by unthreading it in a complicated manner. In addition, threading a new boot with wires can only be done in a complicated manner. This cumbersome process happens essentially because, topologically, the standard boot is like a donut, and the wire through the donut hole cannot pass through the hole boundaries of the donut without destroying the donut.  
         [0005]     The object of the present invention is to solve the above problem by making a boot which possesses a slit bordered by closable and sealable flaps at a point of ingress and egress from the hole of the boot, so that wires can be put into or taken out of the hole by putting the wire through the closable sealable gap into the hole of the boot without the need to thread or rethread wire thought the hole of the boot.  
       BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION  
       [0006]     The invention presented here looks like a standard rooftop electrical boot in the following manner. The boot presented here is made out of flexible rubber. The boot has a flat base out which arises a central oval protuberance with a hole in it. However, the hole is not a true topological donut type of hole in the sense that the boot also has a slit with two opening and overlapping lips that allow ingress and egress from outside the base of the boot into the central hole of the boot, and which lips are sealed with a sealant once the boot is in place as desired by the roof personnel. No electrician is needed and no power shut-off is required in the use of the boot described herein. 
     
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS  
       [0007]     The standard prior art, the improvement in such art as represented in the present invention, and the method of using the present invention are shown in the accompanying drawings.  
         [0008]      FIG. 1  shows a perspective view of how electrical power lines from a power utility pole are conducted into a house while being threaded through a standard boot.  
         [0009]      FIG. 2  shows a close up top view of a standard boot with roof shingles placed around it.  
         [0010]      FIG. 3  shows an overhead close up view of the present invention, with two overlapping flaps that define a slit in the present boot that allow non-destructive access to the hole of the boot.  
         [0011]      FIG. 4  shows a side view of the present boot invention.  
         [0012]      FIG. 5  shows a down roof view of the present boot invention.  
     
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION  
       [0013]     Referring now to  FIG. 1 , we see a power company utility pole  17 , along which at location  18  are connected electrical power lines  19  and  20 . The power cables are connected to a typical residential house  11 , which has sides  15  and  16 , and a roof  14  comprised of its two sides  12  and  13 . The power lines  19  and  20  pass over part of roof side  12  to enter at location  22  of the service head  21  and to exit it at location  23 , which leads to the top section of electric conduit pipe  24 . The pipe  24  passes through a standard rooftop electrical boot  27 , the boot  27  being comprised of its base  28  and its protuberance  29 . The bottom part of the pipe  24  connects to the electrical power meter housing  25  of the house, which contains the electrical power meter  26  of the house  11 . Thus, the electrical wires  19  and  20  pass through the pipe  24  into the electrical power meter housing  25 .  
         [0014]     Referring now to  FIG. 2 , we see the standard boot  27  in more detail. The boot  27  has a flat base  28  from which arises an oval protuberance  29 . At the top of the protuberance  29  is a hole  35  with a circular boundary  36 . The rounded top  37  of the protuberance  29  pointing towards the top of the roof and the stretched out rounded bottom  38  of the protuberance  29  pointing towards the bottom of the roof are shown.  
         [0015]     The boot  27  is held down to the roof surface  12  by four nails, one in each corner of the boot  27 . The two nails  33  at the bottom of the boot are exposed while the two nails  34  at the top of the boot  27  are concealed by two shingles  31 .  
         [0016]     Around the four sides of the boot  27  are various other roof shingles  31  which are held down to the roof surface by various nails  32  that are concealed by other shingles  31 . The arrangement of the shingles  31  and the boot  27  are arranged in a downward overlapping manner so as to prevent leaking of water though the roof surface  12 . Also, when the shingles  31  and the boot  27  have been finally installed on the roof surface  12 , waterproof caulking is applied to the seam between the top surface  37  of the boot and its contacting shingle, and the caulk is also applied to cover the exposed bottom nails  33  holding the boot  27  onto the roof surface  12 .  
         [0017]     A naïve attempt to solve the topological problem the solution of which forms the basis of this invention might be voiced as follows. Why not take a standard boot  27  and cut the boot in a straight line fashion from the hole boundary  36  along the bottom  38  of the protuberance all the way the bottom down roof side of the boot base  28 ? That way, the topological threading problem could be avoided, and after it proper placement around the service pipe  24 , the boot  27  could then be resealed along the straight cut to the down roof side of the boot. This naïve solution would not work, because a standard boot is made of flexible molded rubber 1/16 of an inch thick, and even when the two sides of the cut were closed with a sealant adhesive, the cut would soon open from with weather-related stresses, and water would then leak through the open cut into the underside of the roof. Thus, there is no good way to reconfigure a standard boot like  27  to get around the topological problem.  
         [0018]     In  FIGS. 3, 4 , and  5  are shown respectively overhead, side, and down roof views of a rooftop electrical boot  41  that constitutes the present invention. This boot  41  looks very much like a standard boot at a surface level. Although this boot can made in different sizes, a typical size of this invention to be used on residential roofs has the following measurements: The boot  41 , has a flat essentially rectangular base  42  measuring 11.5 inches long by 9 inches wide. The boot is made from flexible rubber 1/16 inch thick. From the center of the base  42  arises an oval protuberance  43 , rounded at the up roof side  44  and more stretched out and rounded at the down roof side  45 . The protuberance  47  is 5 inches long and 3.25 inches wide. The protuberance  43  rises 2.75 inches above the surface of base  42  of the boot  41 . At the top of the protuberance  43  is a hole  46  bounded by the circular rubber surface  47 . The hole  46  is 1.375 inches in diameter.  
         [0019]     However, unlike the case with a standard boot which must be threaded, this boot  41  possesses a down roof opening or slit  40  between two overlaying flaps  48  and  50 , with their respective edges  49  and  51 , that open up if the base  42  of the boot  41  is temporarily twisted a bit to allow access to the hole  46  from the down roof border of the base  42 . The normally closed flaps  48  and  50  overlap each other to a width of 2.75 inches.  
         [0020]     This boot  41  can be used as an original boot on a new roof or as a replacement boot for an old roof. If this boot  41  is used as a replacement boot, then the old existing boot is first completely removed. Then, in either case, this boot  41  is used as follows: The boot is bent to allow access to the hole  46  so that the hole  46  is slid around the electrical conduit pipe that carries the electric power lines. Double sided adhesive rubber roofing seam tape is cut in the pattern of overlapping flaps  48  and  50  but with 0.25 inches of the seam tape extending out from under the lip  49  of the top flap  48 . While supporting the underside of the boot  41 , the seam tape is pressed on its exposed sticky side firmly onto the top surface of the bottom flap  50 . The seam tape cover paper is removed, and then the two flaps  48  and  50  are pressed together, leaving the extra 0.25 inch margin of the seam tape exposed. Thus a watertight seal is formed with this invention around the hole  46  of this boot  41 . The boot  41  is then attached to a roof and shingled accordingly as with a standard boot, and appropriate caulking applied.