Hot water use warning device for faucets
AssigneeXenidev AB
InventorOskar L. Granstrand
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A low-cost hot water use warning device, having the shape of an aerator housing, including a metallic housing inner core (2) with threads configured for attachment to a faucet and a ridged indented channel for accommodating a thermochromic belt (6) or band that may constitute several layers including an outer thermochromic layer (10) capable of changing its color at a certain temperature, a second high thermal conductivity layer (11) made of copper for evening out temperature gradients and a third low heat conducting polymeric layer (12) for imposing a controlled delay. At each vertical side of the thermochromic belt are flanking wedge-shaped isolation grooves (7). The device operates as an awareness indicator for informing a faucet user of excessive temperature and duration of hot water use.
Claims25
A hot water use warning device configured for attachment to a faucet, comprising:
- a collection of reversible thermochromic pigments having substantially equal activation temperatures and annularly distributed in a ring shaped thermochromic belt along the outer circumference of a water carrying conduit;
- wherein said thermochromic belt is substantially symmetrically placed with respect to the general flow path of water in said water carrying conduit, whereby heating of said reversible thermochromic pigments to a predetermined temperature occurs at approximately equal times and is regardless of the rotational alignment around the flow path axis of said thermochromic belt and,
- wherein said thermochromic belt comprises a low heat conducting material circumferentially encircling a housing inner core having a high heat conductance, whereby a delayed color change of said reversible thermochromic pigments is substantially controllable by varying the thickness of said thermochromic belt and an evening-out effect of heat gradients is introduced.
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A hot water use warning device configured for attachment to a faucet, comprising:
- a collection of reversible thermochromic pigments incorporated into a first thermochromic layer in thermal contact with a second high thermal conductivity layer in thermal contact with a third low thermal conductivity layer, having said low thermal conductivity layer being configured for attachment to and thermal contact with a faucet.
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Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.