Anti-air lock negative and/or vacuum pressure air admittance connector

Abstract

An apparatus to allow or stop an air or water passage into an enclosed environment comprises a housing, an air supply outlet, an air intake inlet, a ball, a gasket, an inlet air filter, an outlet air filter, wherein the ball is inside the housing and moves freely inside the housing, wherein the ball can reside on the gasket and temporarily forms seal to stop the air or water passage, and wherein the ball can be lifted by a lifting force to detach with the gasket when the lifting force is created by an pressure difference when ambient pressure above the gasket inside the housing is less than ambient pressure in the air intake inlet and when the lifting force is greater than the weight of the ball, wherein the air or water passage will flow through the housing and the air supply outlet when the ball is lifted.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE RELATED TO RELATED APPLICATIONS[0001]This application claims the benefit and priority of U.S. Provisional Application No. 62 / 151,463, filed Apr. 23, 2015, which is hereby incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.STATEMENT REGARDING FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH OR DEVELOPMENT[0002]Not ApplicableREFERENCE TO SEQUENCE LISTING, A TABLE, OR A COMPUTER PROGRAM LISTING COMPACT DISK APPENDIX[0003]Not ApplicableBACKGROUND[0004]A variety of air admittance products have been made over the years for allowing air to enter a system under a negative or vacuum pressure and attaching these components to the system allows for proper airflow and venting as needed. Many of these products are specifically or only designed for systems such as piping systems and sewer systems where a local vent or air intake is not possible or due to the difficulty of running pipes through an already built home or structure therefore by connecting an air admittance component allows for easy install...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

The invention is an apparatus that allows air or water to enter an enclosed environment and then seal it up when the airflow is no longer needed. It uses a ball and a gasket to create a temporary seal, and can be lifted by a lifting force to detach from the gasket when there is a pressure difference. This prevents air lock or negative pressure from occurring when a pump is operating in an enclosed environment. Its technical effects are that it provides the proper seal before operation of a pump in an enclosed environment, and provides the need for air admittance when there is an immediate need for air flow due to negative air pressure resulting from the operation of the pump.

Problems solved by technology

Typically, these air admittance components only provide specific operating conditions such as the vacuum pressure in the amount of air required.

All of the air admittance components, systems and parts available in the market today do not provide for an instantaneous and higher volume of air demand.

And this causes a problem when existing air admittance components are installed on systems requiring the higher airflow demand.

This problem causes strain on the air admittance component and cause it to fail prematurely in addition it causes it to operate against its own design because it was designed to work on a natural gravity air flow vacuum or negative pressure constraint.

And the result is that all air admittance components available today in the market either don't work properly or don't allow for enough airflow to enter the system upon demand when there is a higher demand and also proposes a problem of not working at all or failing immediately when a high airflow demand is required.

Furthermore another problem is that air admittance components available do not filter the air and therefore can allow for corrosive environment to enter the system and damaging the Air admittance components.

For these reasons are users are disappointed when there is no product available on the market that they can use for a higher volume demand in a negative pressure scenario such as an enclosed pit with a pump requiring air to enter the system at the same rate of which it is pumping the water out.

For instance a pump that can pump 20 gallons per minute and would require a large demand of airflow to enter the system so that a vacuum does not occur putting stress on the pump and causing the water discharge to not operate and discharge the water properly.

In the case of a sump pump in many cases the pump becomes air locked and runs continuous which causes the pump to overheat, burnout and / or fail causing the area to flood and cause water damage to the building.

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