Technical field

The invention is related to wastewater drainage, more particularly to devices to drain water from washrooms, and even more particularly to a floor drain and a floor gully to drain wastewater from a floor and other bathroom devices such as hand wash sinks, bathtubs, and glass shower rooms.

Background art

Manhole is an underground device that receives runoff water and drives it to an underground sewerage. Manhole-like structures in combination with pipelines to receive wastewater from bathrooms, washing rooms, etc. have been long used in civil works. Manholes in civil works are usually built up with cement and bricks, and therefore soon become a cause of seepage and damages of the works.

Backwards of cement and brick manholes are eliminated by stainless steel floor drains, which are very common nowadays.

A floor drain is an underground fixture that receives wastewater from a bathroom and/or a laundry room and discharges it to a sewer. A floor drain usually comprises a funnel to receive wastewater from the floor surface, an appropriate sealing component to prevent offensive smells (sewer smells) from wastewater lines to come back to bathrooms, laundry rooms, and drains. Therefore, floor drains also called funnel floor drains.

A funnel floor drain may further comprise a cover for avoiding of garbage and a compartment for retaining dirt such as soil and sand. Nevertheless, funnel floor drains have no part to receive wastewater from devices such as glass bathroom, bathtubs, wash sinks, or washing machines and therefore, the lines to convey wastewater therefrom, as well as the line to receive wastewater from floor drains are connected as branches to a wastewater draining line.

There are many published solutions, providing cylindrical structures with many wastewater inlets such as the water receiver published at http://www.topline.ie/plumbing-heating/plumbing/drainage-sew er/channel- drainage/mcalpine/mdlOO-multi-drain-concrete-ground- floor-gully . In combination of a conventional funnel floor drain, that is capable of receiving wastewater from a floor and devices in a bathroom/laundry room.

Nevertheless, a backward of the solution above is its cylindrical body, that turns wastewater inlets to be arranged diametrically to the cylindrical body, and it therefore required mounting some complicated zigzag pipes for connecting wastewater lines to wastewater inlets. That backward may lead to a cul-de-sac when main draining lines from various floors (i.e. upright lines) are usually located in riser boxes at corners of bathrooms and laundry rooms in order to secure the beauty of buildings. In general, it is impossible to use wastewater inlets at any position adjacent to a wall. Furthermore, such funnel floor drains have large heights and are therefore suitable only for ground floors. In other words, they are not suitable to install in concrete floors.

There is therefore a large demand for a proper device, which is simple in structure, easy to fabricate and install, but capable of draining floor water and wastewater from equipment and fixtures in bathrooms and/or laundry rooms.

The invention provides a solution to satisfy that demand.

Technical nature of the invention

An object of the invention is to provide a floor drain with multiple wastewater inlets for easy and convenient installation.

Another object of the invention is to provide a floor gully that is capable of effectively draining wastewater from the floor and sanitary devices in bathrooms and/or laundry rooms.

The invention achieves the first object by providing a combination of the known funnel floor drain and a floor drain, wherein the floor drain comprises: a sump with a bottomed and side walls; multiple wastewater inlets going horizontally through a the first side wall and substantially being parallel one another; a horizontal drain pipe going through a second side wall (13); and the horizontal drain pipe is positioned lower than wastewater inlets.

The invention achieves the second object by combining a funnel floor drain with the floor drain according to the invention.

Brief description of the drawings The features and advantages mentioned above and others will be clarified from the following description with reference to accompanies drawings, wherein:

Fig. 1 is a perspective view of a floor drain according to an embodiment of the invention;

Fig. 2 is a partially cut perspective view of a variation of the embodiment shown in Fig. 1 ;

Fig. 3 is a perspective view of a floor drain according to another embodiment of the invention;

Fig. 4 is a perspective of floor gully that combines a floor drain and a funnel floor drain according to an embodiment of the invention; and

Fig. 5 is a perspective diagram showing how to arrange a floor gully according to an embodiment of the invention.

Detailed description of embodiments

In this specification, the term“floor drain” is used to indicate the floor drain according to the invention in order to differentiate it with the funnel floor drain well known in the art.

As illustrated in Fig. 1, a floor drain (10) according to an embodiment of the invention comprises:

a sump with a bottom and side walls;

multiple wastewater inlets (12) going horizontally through a first side wall (11) and substantially parallel one another;

a horizontal drain pipe (14) going through a second side wall (13) opposite to the first side wall; and

a horizontal drain pipe (14) is positioned lower than wastewater inlets (12). Thanks to its simple structure, the floor drain according to the invention can be fabricated easily from appropriate materials, for instance, stainless steel or plastic, preferably stainless steel.

The sump may have the shape of a box, a cylinder, a truncated cone, preferably a truncated cone as illustrated in drawings. An advantage of this embodiment is convenience to calculate, fabricate and install accurately wastewater inlets (12) into the sump, usually by welding.

It is possible to arrange wastewater inlets (12) and horizontal drain pipe (14) such that the direction of wastewater running in wastewater lines (in the same direction with wastewater inlets (12)) is perpendicular to that of wastewater running in the horizontal drain pipe (14).

Nevertheless, in a preferred embodiment shown in Fig. 1, wastewater inlets (12) and the horizontal drain pipe (14) are arranged such that the direction of wastewater running in wastewater lines (in the same direction with wastewater inlets (12)) is in parallel with that of wastewater running in the horizontal drain pipe (14). That means the first side wall (11) is opposite to the second side wall (13). This embodiment helps minimize splashing of wastewater and is therefore suitable for equipment or fixtures of high flow rates such as bathtubs and washing machines.

Since the horizontal drain pipe (14) is located lower than wastewater inlets (12), the leftover of wastewater in the floor drain according to the invention is inconsiderable.

The embodiment of horizontal drain pipes is suitable for upstand floors, which are floors with bottoms elevated as high as bottoms of beams.

In a variation of the embodiment above, as shown in Fig. 2, the horizontal drain pipe comprises two concentric pipes. This is very good when floor drains according to the invention are fabricated from polymers. An advantage of the variation is that the wastewater line is easily connected tightly to the drain pipe.

It is possible to arrange a vertical drain pipe (15) going through the bottom of the sump as shown in Fig. 3. This is suitable for recessed floors.

Even though the floor drain according to the invention is capable of collecting wastewater from sanitary devices such as washing machines, wash sinks, bathtubs, glass bathrooms, etc., and also receiving water from the floor, it should not be used alone because it is incapable of preventing garbage and foul air.

Therefore, a floor gully according to the invention, as shown in Fig. 4 comprises a funnel floor drain mounted on the floor drain according to the invention. As shown in Fig. 4, the funnel floor drain (20) comprises a surface (21), a grating (22), a stopping pipe (23), a draining pipe (24) and a foul air trap cover (not shown in the drawings).

In the floor gully according to the invention, the funnel floor drain (20) is mounted on the floor drain (10), i.e. it is mounted such that the surface (21) seals the upper face of the floor drain (10).

That means the floor gully according to the invention can be combined with almost all kinds of gullies in order to take full use of their advantages.

During use, floor water may overflow to the funnel floor drain (20) while wastewater from devices in bathrooms and laundry rooms such as bathtubs (30), glass bathrooms (40), wash sinks (50) or washing machines (not shown in the drawings) may enter wastewater inlets of the floor drain as shown in Fig. 5. Wastewater is then driven to a sewer via a horizontal drain pipe (14) or a vertical drain pipe (15) as shown in Fig. 5.

Since wastewater inlets (12) are parallel one another, the arrangement of wastewater lines from devices in bathrooms and/or laundry rooms become easy.

Furthermore, since wastewater inlets are in the same side, it is easy to arrange the floor drain as well as the floor gully at any corner of a bathroom or a laundry room in order to secure the beauty of the building.

The best advantage of the floor drain and the floor gully according to the invention is its easy and simple fabrication and installation with secured fundamental functions of funnel floor drains that is to drain well wastewater from sanitary devices in bathrooms, laundry rooms.

Other embodiments

It is noteworthy that the description above is made for showing the nature of the invention and on the basis of the disclosed features, an ordinary person in the art can configure other embodiments. For instance, one may change the shape of the sump, the shape, dimension, and structure for connecting to pipes, or the distances between wastewater inlets, etc.

Such variation still falls in the scope of the invention.