Hinge assembly for household appliances having an horizontally-pivoted front door

Hinge assembly (1) for household appliances (2) having an horizontally-pivoted front door (4), and which comprises:

• a first coupling element (6) structured for being firmly fixed to a household appliance casing (3);
• a second coupling element (7) structured for being firmly fixed to the front-door (4), and which is pivotally jointed to the first coupling element (6) so as to be able to rotate about a given articulation axis (R), between a first working position wherein the front door (4) is arranged in the raised position, and a second working position wherein the front door (4) is arranged in the completely lowered position;
• and
• a door-weight balancing device (9) which is interposed between the first (6) and the second coupling element (7) and is structured to elastically hamper rotation of the second coupling element (7) at least from the first to the second working position;
• the door-weight balancing device (9) in turn comprising a supporting rod (10) which extends in sliding manner through a supporting portion (11) of the first coupling element (6), a compression-preloaded elastically-deformable member (12) which is fitted to the supporting rod (10) so as to have a first end (12a) fixed to the distal end (10a) of the supporting rod (10) and a second end (12b) acting on the supporting portion (11) of the first coupling element (6), and a linking mechanism (13) which connects the proximal end (10b) of the supporting rod (10) to the second coupling element (7), so that the supporting rod (10) is axially moved to further compress the elastically-deformable member (12) when the second coupling element (7) rotates from the first to the second working position;
• the hinge assembly (1) being characterized in that the door-weight balancing device (9) also comprises an adjustable spacer element (14) which is interposed between the second end (12b) of the elastically-deformable member (12) and the supporting portion (11) of the first coupling element (6), and which is structured so to allow a manually-operated adjustment, between a lower value and a higher value, of the distance (h) between the second end (12b) of the elastically-deformable member (12) and the supporting portion (11) of the first coupling element (6), thus varying the compression preload of the elastically-deformable member (12) fitted on the supporting rod (10).