U.S. patent application number 10/528415 was filed with the patent office on 2005-12-22 for modular garden building.
Invention is credited to Tsang, Shing Chi.
Application Number | 20050279034 10/528415 |
Document ID | / |
Family ID | 34568012 |
Filed Date | 2005-12-22 |
United States Patent
Application |
20050279034 |
Kind Code |
A1 |
Tsang, Shing Chi |
December 22, 2005 |
Modular garden building
Abstract
A modular building with walls held together by a base ring beam
(200) interconnected via dowels (301a, 302a). Triangular roofing
frames (410) are connected to the top of the end side panels via
dowels with roofing pieces (400) held on said roofing frames via
dowels (402).
Inventors: |
Tsang, Shing Chi; (Tawau,
MY) |
Correspondence
Address: |
BACON & THOMAS, PLLC
625 SLATERS LANE
FOURTH FLOOR
ALEXANDRIA
VA
22314
|
Family ID: |
34568012 |
Appl. No.: |
10/528415 |
Filed: |
March 18, 2005 |
PCT Filed: |
September 19, 2003 |
PCT NO: |
PCT/SG03/00224 |
Current U.S.
Class: |
52/79.1 |
Current CPC
Class: |
E04B 1/34315 20130101;
E04H 1/1205 20130101 |
Class at
Publication: |
052/079.1 |
International
Class: |
E04H 009/00; E04H
006/00 |
Foreign Application Data
Date |
Code |
Application Number |
Sep 20, 2002 |
MY |
PI20023517 |
Claims
1. A garden building comprising: a base frame comprising base ring
beams that are connected together to form an enclosed frame of a
polygonal shape; a plurality of sidewalls comprising of a plurality
of wall panels with a plurality of dowels extending from opposed
ends of each said wall panel; at least one door mounted at one side
of the building; a top frame having an enclosed polygonal shape
that is isometry with said base frame, with said top frame
comprising a pair of opposing side ring beams, said side ring beams
being connected together by at least one pair of triangular frames
spanning the ends of said side ring beams; and at least one pair of
roof pieces supported on inclining sides of said triangular
frames.
2. The garden building as claimed in claim 1, wherein said base
frame is rectangular and the length and width of said base frame
corresponds to the length and width of the garden building.
3. The garden building as claimed in an claim 1, wherein said base
ringbeams, said side ringbeams and a first one of said triangular
frames located at said sidewalls of the garden building have
matching holes located therein for receiving said dowels to thereby
enable forming said sidewalls by interconnection of said wall
panels with said base ringbeams, said side ringbeams and the first
triangular frame.
4. The garden building as claimed in claim 1, wherein said door of
comprises a plurality of door panels covering an opening in said
sidewalls, whereof said opening comprises a side of the garden
building that has no said side panel.
5. The garden building as claimed in claim 1, wherein base side and
top ring beams, whether associated with said base frame or said top
frame, are connected to ring beams next to them to form said base
frame or said top frame.
6. The garden building as claimed in claim 1, wherein said opening
is on a front side of the garden building.
7. The garden building as claimed in any claim 1, including weather
seals between adjacent side panels and between said side panels and
said ring beams; and wherein said triangular frames are sealed with
weather seals.
8. The garden building as claimed in claim 1, wherein said frames
of each roof have a plurality dowels which are inserted into holes
on said inclining sides of the triangular frames.
9. The garden building as claimed in claim 1, including a ridge
capping connected to the tops of the peaks of said triangular
frames.
Description
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
[0001] This invention relates to a building structure referred to
as a garden building, to be used in the compound of a house for
various purposes.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
[0002] The garden building is intended to be a small building
structure outside of a house for various utility. It is meant to be
available to the user in modular form for the ease of storage and
transportation. It is intended that a user may buy the invention in
its modular form and takes it home his or her own transport. Then
he or she may conveniently set up the garden building in his or her
own compound by him or herself, without the need of special tools.
It conceived that houses having compounds or gardens yet without a
garage might find such a garden building useful, i.e. for storage
of gardening tools and related materials.
[0003] Generally these advantages in modularity, storage,
transportation and setting up and intended usefulness are made
available by the simplicity in the design of the invention as a
whole. Specifically, the simple and yet practical joints or
interconnections that are utilized, which will be exemplified
later, enables the user to conveniently set up the garden building
in his or her own compound by him or herself, without the need of
special tools. The simplicity in design makes the invention cost
effective for manufacturer also since it makes it easier to
manufacture the invention.
[0004] In simple building structures such as this garden building
or pet houses or any other similar small and simple building
structures, joints have structural importance especially in
ensuring that the entire structure is rigid and not shaky or
swaying. Therefore, designers of various simple building structures
that may also be small have come up with various designs of joints
for their structures. GB 2240024 taught joints being inserts and
slots. Specifically, the pet house exemplified therein uses H-shape
slots and mating walls has H-shape inserts. Although such joints
are structurally rigid by themselves, there is little room for
tolerance in such a H-joint itself as there are a number of
different complementing surfaces that comes into contact
simultaneously. This is obvious from tracing the periphery of
cross-section of such a joint.
[0005] WO0161127 uses panels to form the building itself. It
however uses latches and clamps on profiles as means of joining
different panels together. GB621389 is, a hut that is significantly
larger than the present invention. As such it needs to utilize a
very rigid structure--metal framework with sole plates for resting
on ground. Such rigid base and framework is not necessary for the
present invention since it is much smaller and defeats the purposes
of invention as briefly mentioned above. DE19920556 and EP1188872
are another two examples of such garden buildings, but they are
larger and building them requires local builders; thus labour
intensive.
[0006] In general, accuracy in manufacturing the joints is critical
especially when there are more than two adjoining walls for any
particular structure. It can be quite annoying to the user when
different parts could not be properly joined together due to
manufacturing inaccuracies. Although such inaccuracies can be kept
to minimum due to present day manufacturing technologies, it is
still advantageous to keep a joint as simple as possible, since
users may not be skillful enough to accurately join together more
than two pieces of the building walls. At least, it will involves
some trials and errors for some users during the assembly.
[0007] Thus it is preferable that joints are kept as simple as
possible when without trading off the rigidity of the joint. It
will be apparent later especially to persons skilled in the art,
that in the present invention jointing problems due to inaccuracies
can be kept to a minimum, making manufacturing much cost effective
and also much easier for user to assemble. Although there are more
complicated joints for different needs, the present invention
however do not concern with these.
[0008] It is therefore the objective of the invention to be a
utility structure in a garden or compound that can be easily set up
by the user.
[0009] It is also the objective of the invention for its overall
design to be simple for the ease of storage and transportation, and
specifically for ease of setting up, while at the simultaneously
maintaining stability and rigidity of the invention.
[0010] It is specifically the objective of the invention to achieve
above-mentioned advantages by means of simple, regular parts that
are joined together by means of simple joints; both parts and
joints to be exemplified later.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
[0011] A mowdular garden house has sidewalls made up of regular
wall panels. These load-bearing sidewalls are held together at
their bottom surface and top surface by interconnections with a
base frame and top frame respectively. The base frame is made up of
ring beams joined together by bolts and nuts. The top frame is made
up of two opposing side ring beams joined together by a pair of
identical triangular frames. These interconnections are made by
means of dowels inserted into hole sockets. Roof pieces are roof
sheets built on frames. The roof pieces are supported by means of
dowels on roof frames inserted into hole sockets on the triangular
frames. The opening of the garden building is covered by removable
door panels.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0012] FIG. 1 shows the complete assembly of the invention.
[0013] FIG. 2 shows the top view of the base frame.
[0014] FIG. 3 shows the interconnection of the wall panels with the
base frame.
[0015] FIG. 4 shows the assembly of the top frame on top of the
wall panels, roof pieces and ridge capping.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS
[0016] In accordance to the preferred embodiment of the invention,
a garden building (100) as shown in FIG. 1 is made up basically of
the following elements: wall panels (300), door panels (310), ring
beams (200), triangular frames (410), roof pieces (400) and ridge
capping (420).
[0017] A ring beam (201) is a rigid, strong and elongated flat
beam. Four ring beams (201a, 201b, 201c, 201d) are joined together
using bolts and nuts at each of their ends are used to form a
rectangular base frame (105) (FIG. 2). The width and length of the
garden building (100) is width and length of the rectangular base
frame (105). Furthermore, the ring beams (201c) corresponding to
the rear side and left (201a) and right side (201b) of the building
(100) has holes (202) spaced at regular intervals for
interconnection with wall panels (300) that will be explained
later.
[0018] Regular vertical wall panels (300) form the sidewalls (101a,
102a, 103a) of the building on the rear side (103), left (101) and
right side (102) of the building. Each wall panels (300) may be
embodied as a frame as shown in FIG. 1 and 3. Each vertical wall
panel (300) has at least two dowels (301a, 301b, 302a, 302b)
located at each top (304) and bottom end surface (303) of the wall
panels (300) for interconnection of wall panels (300) with base
frame (105). The dowels (301a, 301b) at the bottom end surface
(303) of any particular wall panel are located in such a manner
that each wall panel (300) can be inserted into the predetermined
holes (202) on the base ring beams (201a, 201b, 201c). Furthermore,
the holes (202) on the base ring beams (201a, 201b, 201c) are
distanced so that they not only receive any particular wall panel
(300) but can also receive other similar wall panels (300): placed
side by side to an already interconnected wall panel. Thus the rear
side (103), left (101) and right sidewalls (102) are erected by
this means of interconnections using dowels such as those of 301a,
301b, 302a, 302b.
[0019] These walls (101a, 102a, 103a) are further steadied by the
following manner. Side ringbeams (204a, 204b) that are similar to
ringbeams described beforehand (201a, 201b) are interconnected with
left (101a) and right sidewalls (102a) at their respective top ends
(304). These side ringbeams (204) have holes (205) on them at
predetermined locations so that they can be inserted into dowels
(302a, 302b) on the top end (304) of these sidewalls (101a, 102a,
103a); in similar manner with the dowels (301a, 301b) inserted into
the base frame (101).
[0020] A triangular frame (410) is interconnected with the top
(304) of the rear sidewall (103a) in similar manner of
interconnection using dowels (302a, 302b) on the wall panels (300)
with holes (hidden from view) located on the base end surface (411)
of triangular frame (410); as in the case with other sidewalls
(101a, 102a, 103a). This rear end triangular frame (410c) or
referred to as first triangular frame is also joined to the side
ringbeams (204a, 204b) using bolts and nuts to form a top frame
(106). At this juncture it is evident that this top frame (106) is
isometric with the base frame (101). Another triangular frame
(410d) similar to the first triangular is joined to the other end
of the side ringbeams (204a, 204b) at the front side of the garden
building. These triangular frames (410c, 410d) have holes (412)
predetermined at location on their inclined surfaces (411).
[0021] By now roof pieces (400), which are roof sheets (401)
mounted on a frame can be supported on the triangular frames (410)
by similar means of interconnections that uses dowel and hole
sockets as described above. The roof pieces (400) has dowels (402)
at predetermined locations to be inserted into the holes (412) on
the inclined surface (411) of the triangular frames (410). After
the installations of roof pieces (400) there ridge capping (420)
put over two peaks of the triangular frames (410) to complete the
assembly.
[0022] Lastly, the door panels (310) are removable panels placed on
the opening of the front side (104) of the garden building (100) to
cover it. Seams in between one wall panel with other wall panels
(300) and with the ringbeams (200) are sealed with weather seals to
prevent water leakage.
[0023] It is to be understood that the present invention may be
embodied in other specific forms and is not limited to the sole
embodiment described above. However modification and equivalents of
the disclosed concepts such as those which readily occur to one
skilled in the art are intended to be included within the scope of
the claims which are appended thereto.
* * * * *