Maytag Corporation

Paul D Noel

Stanley H Beach

Steve M Schatz

Michael E Bales

Wallace E Schmidt

Edward H Strain

John Harper

Virgil Montgomery

A reliable, easily installable and replaceable range top system sealingly and removably connects a sealed glass panel to the structure of a range top. The system comprises a glass panel-elastic seal assembly, including a glass range top panel and an elastic seal attached at the periphery of the glass range top panel, a carrier for the glass panel-elastic seal assembly and means for removably fastening the glass panel into sealing engagement with the range top structure without tools, the fastening means providing an easily disengageable interlock with the range top structure.

Glass range top-seal system

A novel dual mode, downdraft gas range provides a sealed top and sealed gas burners that can be operated effectively in a power burner mode with a downdraft exhaust and otherwise in an atmospheric mode. In the range, a separate and independently operating air/gas supply chamber for each sealed burner is supplied with a controllable flow of gas, and, in the power burner mode, with a controlled forced flow of primary combustion air from a combustion air blower and pressure-adjustable air plenum that supply all air/gas chambers, and each air/gas supply chamber is provided with a gated opening, which is operated to provide an unobstructed flow of primary combustion air from atmosphere in non-power burner operation. The mixture of air and primary combustion air flows from the air/gas supply chamber through a sealed conduit formed to be free of obstructions and abrupt changes in direction with a flow diffuser provided adjacent the gas burner. In the power burner mode, the air/gas mixture is combusted without being affected by the downdraft exhaust.

Dual mode downdraft gas range

A dual mode downdraft gas range provides a number of substantial advantages, including operation in a powered burner mode and an atmospheric mode. In the powered burner mode, a plurality of powered open flame surface burners can provide even heat from each of the burners as a result of burner flames that provide substantially complete combustion close to the burner outlets in short, stable flames that are unaffected by an adjacent downdraft exhaust or other outside influences. In the atmospheric mode, the gas burners can operate without a downdraft exhaust. The gas range can meet agency requirements in both the powered mode and atmospheric mode of operation and can be inherently fail-safe in the event of a power failure in the downdraft exhaust system. The gas range can be economically and easily manufactured and assembled, with burner controls arranged for convenient operation at one side of the range box for the plurality of burners.

Downdraft gas range with dual mode burner system

Growing community of inventors

Greenfield, IN, United States of America

Paul D Noel