Intensive Use Water Repelling Chair

This invention relates to a Water Repelling Chair and more particularly to a water repelling chair or grouping thereof, especially suitable for use in an incarceration facility.

It is desirable that furniture have durability and be comfortable. It is also desirable that furniture be suited for the purpose desired as well as aesthetically pleasing. An especially difficult situation is to develop furniture suitable for use in intensive use environments that may be inside or out of doors. These intensive use environments may be prisons, shelters, barracks or health facilities. The users may use the furniture for long periods demanding comfort, including a dry clean surface to support users for a short period or a lifetime.

Furniture for intensive use facilities has special requirements. The use requires a tough outer shell that is flexible to offer comfort to the user while resisting tearing, cutting or ripping. The chair must be able to repel liquid in the form of rain, drinks or bodily fluids to provide an easily cleaned piece of furniture.

Cleanliness is difficult to maintain. A Water Repelling Chair that does not collect fluids helps maintain a good environment while reducing manpower to keep clean. Durability and suitability as well as comfort, aesthetic and ergonomic utility are required. It is difficult to achieve proper aesthetics and ergonomics or comfort, when the primary goal is durability and suitability.

Furthermore, it is desired that furniture used in an intensive use environment prevent improper use of that furniture. For example, any furniture must lack a place of concealment. The furniture should not have facilities where a user may try to conceal drugs, weapons or other contraband. Further, the furniture should not have removable parts that may be used to try to make a weapon, including a fastener or a portion that may be torn off the from a part of the furniture.

Additionally, mobility or ease of movement is required while limiting the ability to use the furniture itself as a weapon. The furniture may be mounted on glides to allow sliding on the floor while being ballasted with weight to prevent being picked up. Alternatively, the chair may have provisions to attach to the floor or wall or joined to another chair or table to create configurations of joined chairs, needing minimum maintenance.

By combining the durability of the one piece molded shell with comfort and aesthetically pleasing characteristics, certain psychological advantages can be obtained. For one, the aesthetic pleasure with corresponding comfort can reduce the mental strain on both the prisoners and the staff. This factor can inherently result in a safer environment. The availability of a relatively clean, dry chair, requiring minimum effort to keep clean of debris or liquids may also reduce the physical and mental strain on both the users and the staff.

Among the many objectives of this invention is the provision of a Water Repelling Chair which can be rotationally molded to have an enclosed outer shell configured to a proper shape for comfort, functionality and aesthetics, while being durable in a design engineered to resist puddling of liquids. The Water Repelling Chair may have an outer shell manufactured in one piece to reduce contraband concealment and dirt and water accumulation. The Water Repelling Chair may comprise a chair base, a chair seat, a chair back channel and a chair back.

The chair base may comprise a left base leg portion and opposing generally mirror image right base leg portion. The chair base is formed as part of the one piece outer shell having a ballast formed chamber therein. A ballast chamber port on the bottom surface of the chair base may provide access to the ballast chamber for the purpose of adding or removing ballast material such as sand or water. The bottom surface of the base may further comprise glides disposed to rest on the floor and ganging sockets adapted to enable ganging with other chairs to form a sitting assembly. The base front portion may be indented to allow the user to comfortably extend their legs downward to the floor.

The chair seat may be formed as part of the outer shell on top of the base having a generally convex shape to resist contamination by liquids or debris pooling on the chair seat thus making the chair aesthetically pleasing and comfortable. For the purpose of this description the term convex shall describe a curved shape extending outward from the chair base or the surface the base is sitting on such as a floor. The chair seat may comprise a raised center portion, a front seat portion, a pair of opposing seat sides and a convex shaped back seat portion sealingly enclosing the base.

The chair back may comprise an outside back portion, a back support portion, and a back top. The back support portion extends from the back top to a chair back bottom portion.

The back channel is a convex shaped channel disposed between the chair back bottom portion and the chair seat back portion. The back channel may comprise a chair seat side, a chair back side, a center Water Repelling Chair, a first end and a second end. The back channel seat side may be disposed on the chair seat back portion. The back channel back side may be disposed on the chair back bottom portion as part of the one piece outer shell. The left leg portion and right leg portion may be disposed on a respective one of the first and second back channel ends. The back channel center portion is disposed above each of the first and second back channel ends, thus forming the back channel in a convex shape adapted to use gravity to direct liquids to flow toward one of the first back channel end or second back channel end.

The dome shaped center seat portion may be adapted to cause liquid to flow away from the center seat portion. The back channel may be adapted to direct liquids spilling from the chair seat or the chair back to flow by gravity from the center portion to one of the first and second back channel ends

Water Repelling Chair may have a seat formed in an undulating design wherein fluids are urged by gravity to flow over the seat to the convex back channel thereby eliminating the need for a drain hole. The back channel may comprise a generally convex shape to a concave channel portion. The concave channel portion having a back side on the chair back bottom portion and a seat side on the chair seat back portion. The concave channel spaced from the Chair seat and the chair back and adapted to capture fluids and direct such fluids by gravity along the convex back channel from the center portion to the first or second back channel ends. The back channel center portion disposed at a position whereby a high point is established in the center portion between the left rear leg and the right rear leg. This downward curved convex shaped back channel captures fluid from the chair seat and the chair back and directs it by gravity to the left chair side or the right chair side wherein a drain hole is not required to shed fluids from the seat area. The generally horizontal convex chair seat is disposed between the generally vertical left chair side and right chair side.

The above description sets forth, rather broadly, the more important features of the present invention so that the detailed description of the preferred embodiment that follows may be better understood and contributions of the present invention to the art may be better appreciated. There are, of course, additional features of the invention that will be described below and will form the subject matter of claims. In this respect, before explaining at least one preferred embodiment of the invention in detail, it is to be understood that the invention is not limited in its application to the details of the construction and to the arrangement of the components set forth in the following description or as illustrated in the drawings. The invention is capable of other embodiments and of being practiced and carried out in various ways. Also, it is to be understood that the phraseology and terminology employed herein are for the purpose of description and should not be regarded as limiting.

In the following detailed description of the preferred embodiments, reference is made to the accompanying drawings, which form a part of this application. The drawings show, by way of illustration, specific embodiments in which the invention may be practiced. It is to be understood that other embodiments may be utilized and structural changes may be made without departing from the scope of the present invention. (It is to be understood that the specific devices and processes illustrated in the attached drawings, and described in the following specification are simply exemplary embodiments of the inventive concepts defined in the appended claims. Hence, specific dimensions and other physical characteristics relating to the embodiments disclosed herein are not to be considered as limiting.) It should be appreciated that the invention can be used for any suitable device attachable to a magnetic surface,

Referring to, the water repelling chairmay comprise a back, a seata baseand a back channel. The basemay comprise a right leg portiona left leg portion, a bottom surface. The back channelmay comprise a back channel peak, a right back channel endand a left back channel endto direct fluids away from the back channel peak as indicated by the arrows labeled by the character F. The seatmay comprise a front seat portion, a raised seat portionand a first and second side portions. The seat backmay comprise a seat back top, and a seat back support portionand a seat back bottom portion. The seat back bottom portionmay be integrally formed with the back channelbeing part of the one piece outer shell.

Referring to, the water repelling chairmay further comprise a ballast chamberformed between the two opposing side portions,, the bottom surfaceand the seat. The ballast chambermay be enclosed in the outer shell. A ballast portmay be disposed on the bottom surface. The chair backmay have a base back portionon the base. The chair seatmay further comprise a back seat portion. The back channelis disposed between the seat back bottom portionand the back seat portionand is adapted to receive fluids from the chair backor the chair seatand direct the fluids by gravity to the flooras indicated by the arrows labeled by the character F.

Referring to, feet or glidesmay be disposed on the bottom surfaceto support the water repelling chair. Ganging socketsmay be formed in the bottom surfaceto adapt the water repelling chairto be ganged together with a second chairusing a flangehaving fastener holesadapted to align with the ganging socketsand receive fastenersto fix together with the water repelling chairs,

Referring to, the water repelling chairis shown in section along the lines of-of. Back channelextends from channel peakto second back channel end. one piece outer shellsurrounds ballast chamber. Backis disposed in a generally vertical orientation. Chair seatis orientated to urge fluidto flow off in the direction indicated by arrow F by gravity. As it relates to the floor, the raised seat portionof the chair seatis at a seat height. The channel peakof the back channelis at a channel peak heightwhich is lower than seat height. Left back channel endis at a back channel end heightwhich is lower than channel peak heightand generally similar to the height of right back channel end(not shown)

Referring ti, the water repelling chairhas a generally convex shape with respect to the chair base. Fluidsare directed off the water repelling chair as indicated by the arrows labeled by the character F. The back channelis in fluid communication with the chair seat and the chair back. The back channel peakis in fluid communication with the left and right back channel ends,.

Although the description above contains many specifications, these should not be construed as limiting the scope of the invention but as merely providing illustrations of some of the embodiments of this invention. Thus, the scope of the invention should be determined by the appended claims and their legal equivalents rather than by the examples given. Further, the present invention has been shown and described with reference to the foregoing exemplary embodiments. It is to be understood, however, that other forms, details, and embodiments may be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention which is defined in the following claims.