U.S. patent application number 10/879725 was filed with the patent office on 2005-03-17 for pedestal support and floor constructed of such pedestal supports.
This patent application is currently assigned to Bergvik Flooring KB. Invention is credited to Johansson, Ulf.
Application Number | 20050055925 10/879725 |
Document ID | / |
Family ID | 27731077 |
Filed Date | 2005-03-17 |
United States Patent
Application |
20050055925 |
Kind Code |
A1 |
Johansson, Ulf |
March 17, 2005 |
Pedestal support and floor constructed of such pedestal
supports
Abstract
The invention relates to a floor comprising a flooring (7, 8,
9), a system of load-bearing beams (5, 6) and pedestal supports (4,
4'), which are adapted to support the beams and the subfloor at a
distance above a subfloor (2, 3). The pedestal supports are
telescopically, continuously adjustable in the longitudinal
direction before as well as after installation of the floor and are
non-rotatably connectible to the beams as well as to the subfloor
and capable of absorbing compressive as well as tractive forces in
such a manner that, in the longitudinal adjustment, it is made
possible to push the flooring away from the subfloor as well as
pull it towards the same. The invention also relates to a pedestal
support (4, 4') for use in such a floor. Preferably, the floor is a
bowling floor.
Inventors: |
Johansson, Ulf; (Soderhamn,
SE) |
Correspondence
Address: |
BURNS DOANE SWECKER & MATHIS L L P
POST OFFICE BOX 1404
ALEXANDRIA
VA
22313-1404
US
|
Assignee: |
Bergvik Flooring KB
Soderhamn
SE
|
Family ID: |
27731077 |
Appl. No.: |
10/879725 |
Filed: |
June 30, 2004 |
Current U.S.
Class: |
52/390 |
Current CPC
Class: |
E04F 15/02452 20130101;
E04F 15/0247 20130101 |
Class at
Publication: |
052/390 |
International
Class: |
E04F 013/08 |
Foreign Application Data
Date |
Code |
Application Number |
Jul 2, 2003 |
SE |
0301950-2 |
Claims
1. A pedestal support which is adapted to support a system of
load-bearing beams (5, 6) and a flooring (7, 8, 9) at a distance
above a subfloor (2, 3) and is telescopically, continuously
adjustable in the longitudinal direction before as well as after
installation of the floor and non-rotatably connectible to the
beams as well as to the subfloor, wherein it is capable of
absorbing compressive as well as tractive forces in such a manner
that, in longitudinal adjustment, it is made possible to push the
flooring (7, 8, 9) away from the subfloor (2, 3) as well as pull it
towards the same.
2. A pedestal support as claimed in claim 1, wherein it comprises a
holder (16) which is connectible to the beams (5) and which is
rotatably connected to a threaded rod (15) which in turn is
threadedly connected to a pedestal support body (12) which is
non-rotatably connectible to the subfloor, in such a manner that
the pedestal support is capable of absorbing compressive as well as
tractive forces while at the same time the threaded rod is
screwable into and out of the body, thereby allowing continuous
adjustment of the pedestal support in the longitudinal direction
also when the body and the holder are non-rotatably connected to
the subfloor and the beams, respectively.
3. A pedestal support as claimed in claim 2, wherein the threaded
rod (15) has an engaging means (17) to allow screwing of the rod
into and out of the body (12) by means of a tool.
4. A pedestal support as claimed in claim 2, wherein the threaded
rod has a lock nut (18) which is tightenable against the body to
lock the threaded rod relative to the body (12) when the desired
length of the pedestal support is achieved.
5. A pedestal support as claimed in claim 1, wherein the body
comprises a base part (13) which is connectible to the subfloor in
such a manner that, in the mounted state, it is capable of
absorbing transverse, tractive as well as torque forces.
6. A floor comprising a pedestal support as claimed in claim 1.
7. A floor as claimed in claim 6, wherein the flooring has at least
one openable portion (11) to allow access for adjustment of the
lengths of the pedestal supports.
8. A floor as claimed in claim 6, wherein the floor is a bowling
floor.
9. A floor as claimed in claim 6, wherein it is made in the form of
a floating floor, in which the subfloor comprises a
sound-insulating layer (2) and, arranged thereon, a carrying layer
(3) which carries the pedestal supports.
10. A floor comprising a pedestal support as claimed in claim
2.
11. A floor comprising a pedestal support as claimed in claim
3.
12. A floor comprising a pedestal support as claimed in claim
4.
13. A floor comprising a pedestal support as claimed in claim 5.
Description
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
[0001] The present invention relates to a floor of the type
comprising a flooring, which is adapted to be supported, at a
distance above a subfloor, by means of a system of beams and
pedestal supports. The invention also relates to pedestal supports
for such a floor.
BACKGROUND ART
[0002] Floors of the type described above are used in a large
number of applications, for instance as installation floors in
control rooms and sub-exchanges for telephony. A great advantage of
such floors is that the space formed between the flooring and the
subfloor can be used for installations of various kinds, such as
electric wiring, signal transfer lines, heat and water piping,
sewer lines, ventilation tubes and the like.
[0003] A common type of such floors comprises pedestal supports of
metal which are square tubes and whose upper end is closed by an
end wall which is provided with a through hole. One end of a
threaded shaft provided with a holder is insertable into the hole
while the other end of the threaded shaft has a fastener which is
U-shaped in cross-section and adapted to be screwed to the beams of
the floor. The longitudinal adjustment of the pedestal support is
performed by a stop nut being screwed along the threaded shaft and
thus defining a lower stop position of the holder and, thus, a
vertical level for the holder and the floor. The lower end of the
pedestal support is screwed to the subfloor which is usually made
of concrete. Such a floor construction makes it possible, during
and after installation of the floor, to provide quick and easy
adjustment of the height of the floor to eliminate any differences
in height. However, such a floor will be fairly unstable in the
lateral direction and must therefore be braced against surrounding
walls, which implies that there are walls which are sufficiently
stable and suited for this purpose. If, after mounting, the
flooring should begin to bulge owing to tension in the floor, for
instance due to bulking in the boards or the like that form the
flooring, there is besides no possibility of correcting this in a
simple manner, but the only option is in most cases to take up the
flooring and lay it once more. Moreover the vertical setting can
later be changed unintentionally by the vertical adjusting nut
being threaded up or down on the threaded shaft, for instance due
to vibrations.
[0004] Another type of floor where a flooring is to be supported
above a subfloor is a bowling floor. In such floors, a flooring of
wood or fiberboard and laminate with great finish is to be
supported at a level above a subfloor, usually of concrete, on the
one hand to be able to accommodate installations in the form of,
for instance, electric wiring, ball gutters and pin set-up devices
in the space between the subfloor and the flooring but, on the
other hand, also to be able to mount the flooring flat and
horizontal with great accuracy, which precisely for, inter alia,
bowling floors is most important. As far as is known, such floors
have up to now always been made up of a system of primary and
secondary beams of wood, in which case the plane and horizontal
adjustment occurs by means of wedges that are driven in between the
primary beams and the concrete floor. There are several drawbacks
of such a floor. For instance, wood is susceptible to moisture and
may cause motions due to moisture which can be devastating to the
flatness and the horizontal balancing and may also cause formation
of mold at too high a moisture content. Such a system of wooden
beams also provides small spaces for installations since they take
up themselves much of the space between the flooring and the
subfloor. Moreover, vertical adjustment by means of wedges is both
complicated and time consuming and there is a risk of the wedges
between primary beams and subfloor being dislodged due to
vibrations, so that the flatness and horizontal balancing of the
floor is changed during the life of the floor. In that case, it is
very difficult, and in most cases impossible, to readjust the floor
without taking it up wholly or partly and laying it once more.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
[0005] It is an object of the invention to provide an improved
pedestal support of the type mentioned by way of introduction and,
more specifically, to provide a pedestal support which can easily
be adjusted at a well-defined level from which the flooring is
prevented from being unintentionally dislodged both towards the
subfloor and away therefrom. At least this object is achieved by a
pedestal support according to claim 1.
[0006] The invention also relates to a floor with essentially the
same object as stated above. This object is achieved by means of a
floor according to claim 6.
[0007] The invention is thus based on the knowledge that a floor
with improved possibilities of vertical adjustment also after
installation of the floor can be provided by designing the pedestal
supports in such a manner that,;-in spite of being longitudinally
adjustable after installation of the floor when the pedestal
supports are connected to both the subfloor and the beams in a
manner preventing rotation, the pedestal supports are capable of
absorbing compressive as well as tractive forces.
[0008] This can be provided in various ways. The simplest way is,
like in the preferred embodiment, to let one end of a threaded rod
be screwable into and out of a threaded hole in a body while the
other end of the rod is, by means of a rotary joint, freely
rotatable relative to a holder for the beams. The opposite would
also be possible, i.e. that a body with an internally threaded hole
is rotatable relative to a stationary threaded rod. Also double
threads with opposite pitches would be conceivable, for instance a
rod with opposite thread pitches at each end which is screwable
into and out of a lower body connected to the subfloor, and an
upper body connected to the flooring, which each have an internally
threaded hole. A further alternative is to arrange a tubular body
with an internally threaded hole with opposite thread pitches at
each end, which is screwable into and out of opposite threaded
rods, viz. a first rod attached to the subfloor and a second rod
attached to the beams. The important thing is that the pedestal
support is constructed of at least three different pedestal support
parts, i.e. the body, the threaded rod and the holder according to
the embodiment, which are connected in series and freely rotatable
relative to each other, at least two of the pedestal support parts
being screwably displaceable in the longitudinal direction relative
to each other.
[0009] In the preferred embodiment, the pedestal support has the
form of a lower tubular body, and continuous adjustment in the
longitudinal direction is performed by means of a threaded rod, one
end of which can be screwed into and out of a threaded hole in the
body while the other end has an upper pedestal support part in the
form of a holder or an attachment for connection to and carrying of
a system of load-bearing beams on which the flooring is mounted. It
would also be conceivable to allow, in addition to continuous fine
adjustment, rough adjustment of the length of the pedestal support
by dividing the body into two separate body parts, one body part
being displaceable inside the other so that the body parts are
lockable in different variable or fixed positions relative to each
other.
[0010] Preferably the threaded rod is lockable relative to the body
in order to prevent unintentional longitudinal adjustment of the
pedestal leg, for instance due to vibrations. Such locking can
easily be performed, like in the preferred embodiment, by mounting
a lock nut on the threaded rod and, when the pedestal support has
the correct length, the lock nut can be tightened against the upper
side of the body, thus locking the rod. However,
rotation-preventing locking could also be performed in some other
manner, for instance by cotter pins, locking screws or the
like.
[0011] The floor has a system of beams which are supported on the
pedestal supports and which in turn support the flooring. In the
preferred embodiment, the system of beams comprises intersecting
beams in two planes, viz. primary and secondary beams. For some
applications, it would however be possible to arrange beams in one
plane only, but this may have the drawback that the number of
pedestal supports must be increased. It is preferred to use beams
of metal, preferably steel, since such beams with a suitable
anticorrosive treatment are insusceptible to moisture. However, it
will be understood that also wooden beams could be used.
[0012] The inventive floor and the pedestal support are specially
suited for floors where high demands are placed on flatness and
horizontal balancing. A type of floor where this is the case is, as
is also shown in the following embodiment, a floor for bowling. An
additional advantage of using a floor according to the present
invention as a bowling floor is that the gutters that are placed on
both sides of each lane can be made raisable so as to allow easy
access for adjustment of the lengths of the pedestal supports, if
required.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0013] A preferred embodiment of the invention will now be
described and shown in the accompanying drawings, applied in a
bowling floor by way of example. In the drawings
[0014] FIG. 1 is a longitudinal section through part of a bowling
floor,
[0015] FIG. 2 is a cross-section along line II-II in FIG. 1,
and
[0016] FIGS. 3-5 are a perspective view and two side views of a
pedestal support according to the invention.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF A PREFERRED EMBODIMENT
[0017] FIGS. 1 and 2 are a longitudinal section and a
cross-section, respectively, of a bowling floor constructed
according to the present invention, two separate bowling lanes 1
being illustrated in FIG. 2. The bowling floor is supported by a
subfloor, which, for instance, may comprise a concrete floor slab
(not shown), on top-of this a sound-insulating layer 2 of, for
instance, mineral wool, and a carrying layer 3 of fiberboard.
[0018] The actual bowling floor comprises short pedestal supports 4
and long pedestal supports 4' which stand on the subfloor and
support, at a distance from this, a system of load-bearing beams,
viz. primary beams 5 and intersecting secondary beams 6. A flooring
rests on top of the secondary beams, which is constructed of two
layers 7, 8 of load-bearing fiberboards and a surface layer 9 of,
for example, veneer or laminate.
[0019] As is shown in FIG. 1, the bowling floor comprises two
different sections of slightly different designs, a lane 1' and a
pin platform 1". What differs the two sections is that the pin
platform has a somewhat thicker flooring and correspondingly
shorter pedestal supports. The primary and secondary beams,
however, have the same height, but the secondary beams are arranged
with a smaller interspace under the pin platform. The reason for
these differences is that the wear and the load exerted on the pin
platform is considerably greater since this is the place where the
pins are placed during the play, and the pin platform also supports
the device that collects and arranges the pins and ensures that the
balls are returned to the beginning of the lane. For this reason,
the lane and the pin platform are also separate from each other and
separately adjustable in the vertical direction independently of
each other. The flooring of the pin platform can be reconditioned,
for instance ground, separately when the wear on the pin platform
has become too great, without necessitating grinding of the entire
lane. After such reconditioning, the pin platform can easily be set
at exactly the same height as the lane by adjusting the lengths of
the pedestal supports, even if the thickness of the flooring has
been changed.
[0020] On each side of the pin platform, there is a vertical wall
element 10 which on the one hand serves to support the pin handling
device and on the one hand prevents the pins from being thrown away
to neighboring lanes as the balls hit the pins.
[0021] As shown in FIG. 2, a gutter 11 is located on both sides of
each lane. The gutters 11 serve to catch misaligned balls which are
on their way of leaving the lane. Such gutters are in most cases
made raisable, which makes it possible to easily readjust the
length of the pedestal supports, if required.
[0022] Then reference is made to FIGS. 3-5, which show a pedestal
support in more detail. The shown pedestal support is one of the
short pedestal supports 4 under the pin platform 1". However, it
will be understood that the long pedestal supports 4' under the
lane 1' are of essentially the same design, the only difference
being that the length of a body 12 of the pedestal support is
greater.
[0023] The body 12 is tubular and its lower end is connected to a
triangular base part or plate 13. The upper end of the body has an
end plate 14 through which a threaded through hole (not shown) is
formed. A threaded rod 15 is screwable into and out of the threaded
hole in the end plate 14, and the upper end of the threaded rod is
rotatably connected to a beam holder 16 which is U-shaped in
cross-section. The threaded rod 15 is rotatable by means of a tool
which is engageable with a nut 17 that is non-rotatably fixed to
the threaded rod 15. A lock nut is designated 18 and, when the
threaded rod 15 has been rotated so that the beam holder 16 has
assumed the desired height above the base plate 13, the lock nut
can be tightened and locked against the end plate 14, thus locking
the threaded rod and preventing unintentional rotation thereof.
[0024] When mounting the inventive floor, the pedestal supports 4,
4' are thus placed on the subfloor, in the shown Example on the
carrier plate 3, and is screwed to this by means of screws through
holes in the base plate 13. The length of the pedestal support can
now be roughly set, and subsequently the primary beams are placed
in the beam holders 16 of the pedestal supports and screwed to
these. When also the secondary beams 6 have been fixed to the
primary beams, the height of the pedestal supports can be set
exactly by the threaded rod being screwed up or down in the
threaded hole in the end plate 14. This is made possible, although
the base plate 13 is non-rotatably connected to the subfloor and
the beam holder 16 is non-rotatably connected to the primary beams,
by the threaded rod 15 being rotatably connected to the beam holder
16 by a rotary joint (not shown). When the height and the
horizontal balancing are within given tolerances, the threaded rod
15 is locked by the lock nut 18. Subsequently it is possible to
mount the flooring and all the other equipment, such as gutters 11,
carrier walls 10 and pin handling devices. If, after the final
mounting, the height of the floor within an area should deviate
from given tolerances, it is an easy operation to raise one of the
gutters 11 to allow access for readjustment of the pedestal
supports involved. As mentioned above, it will then also be
possible to pull the flooring down towards the subfloor if, for
some reason, tension should have arisen, striving to bulge the
flooring upwards.
[0025] By constructing the bowling floor in the manner described
above according to the invention, a very stable floor is obtained,
which can quickly and easily be constructed and set at a correct
level above the subfloor. Since the threaded rod 15 is threadedly
connected to the body 12, a connection practically without play is
obtained, which, in combination with the torque-absorbing
connection of the base part 13 to the subfloor, allows the floor to
be completely separate from surrounding walls. This, combined with
the-fact that the subfloor is made as a floating floor with an
insulating layer 2, completely without joists, against the concrete
floor, results in excellent sound insulation that counteracts
structure-borne sound propagating through the concrete structure.
This is particularly advantageous for bowling floors since the
balls and the pins produce sound that may be experienced as very
disturbing, but it is not impossible that these properties can be
very advantageous also for other types of floor.
* * * * *