A domestic clothes dryer typically has a cabinet including a front panel with an access opening through which clothes are loaded and unloaded into a rotating drum. The door is mounted through one or more hinges to the cabinet front panel on one side of the access opening.
Typically, these doors are manufactured to open by pivoting out to the right or the left. While it is possible to order the door to pivot out in the direction required for the user, should the need arise by the user changing living space or laundry space in the home, it may be necessary to reverse the door and change the side to which the door pivots open. For example, the location of the washing machine relative to the dryer is fixed by pre-existing plumbing and/or dryer vent holes and this may require changing the pivot direction the door opens to facilitate transfer of clothing from the washing machine to the clothes dryer. Thus, it would be desirable to have a window dryer door that could be reversed so that it could readily be hung or mounted from either side of the access opening depending on the requirements of the particular installation. Further, it may be desirable for a manufacturer to be able to easily reverse the mounting side of the door.
For a door having a viewing window, many of these doors are port hole type doors and the clothes dryer typically has a front panel with a circular opening and a circular door jam. The dryer drum bulkhead is mounted in the dryer adjacent the panel and has a circular opening that is cropped horizontally along the bottom of the opening permitting the dryer bulkhead to provide a trap duct for receiving a filter through which air exits the dryer drum. This type of dryer construction results in the window door typically comprising an outer circular window of plastic and an inner glass window that is non-circular and is cropped to conform to the opening in the bulkhead of the dryer. Reversing the hinge for this type of dryer door involves the disassembly of the door, reversing of the hinge and then re-assembly of the complete door.
Clearly, there is a need for an improved window type dryer door that may be converted to open from an opposite side of the dryer that does not involve the complete disassembly of the door.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds