Pushbutton activated water pressure balanced mixing valve

Abstract

A pushbutton activated water pressure balanced mixing valve for faucets and shower/tub discharge controls includes a housing, a valve sleeve having hot and cold water inlets and a mixed water discharge and a valve member. The valve member has a hot water passage communicable with the sleeve hot water inlets and the sleeve mixed water discharge and a cold water passage communicable With the sleeve cold water inlet and the sleeve mixed water discharge. The housing has an outlet connected to the sleeve mixed water discharge. The valve member has generally equal pressure balancing surfaces and there is a passage in the housing connected to the sleeve discharge and to each of the pressure balancing surfaces for applying water pressure onto the surfaces for causing water temperature modulation movement of the valve member within the sleeve. There is also a passage connecting each of the pressure balancing surfaces with the housing outlet. There are manually operable check valves in each of the passages connecting the pressure balancing surfaces and the housing outlets. Operation of one of the check valves reduces the water pressure applied to one of the pressure balancing surfaces causing the valve member to move within the valve sleeve changing the extent of communication of each of the sleeve hot and cold water inlets with the sleeve mixed water discharge to vary the water temperature thereof.