The invention relates to a hopper for efficiently diverting materials such as concrete into the hollows of a wall.
When building a cinder block wall, various cells need to be filled with concrete. Often times, rebar steel reinforcement beams must be placed within the cells of a cinder block wall to strengthen the wall. Without concrete, a cinder block wall can be easily broken.
For large projects, construction workers usually fill concrete walls by mixing concrete in a concrete mixer and then pouring the concrete from a chute into the cells of a wall. For small projects, concrete is mixed in a bucket, which is used to pour the concrete into the cells of the wall.
Several devices have attempted to expedite the pouring of concrete into the cells of a wall. The Hedrickson device U.S. Pat. No. 5,868,180, issued Feb. 9, 1999 is entitled Concrete form splash funnel. The Hedrickson funnel is shaped to pour concrete into a wall. The funnel is placed with the mouth inside the wall to allow a user to pour concrete into the wall. The Deye funnel must be removed and placed in every set of cells that need to be filled. It does not allow a user to pour concrete and rod the concrete at the same time. The term rod is the industry term for screed. The Hedrickson device is a low cost funnel for directing the flow of fluid concrete to the form for a concrete wall or a concrete block wall. The funnel can be unitary and of plastic. Further, the funnels can be nested with each other for ease of storage and cost of transportation.
For larger walls, Danzi U.S. Pat. No. 5,732,753, 141/340 (issued Mar. 3, 1998 uses a funnel system. The Danzi device is a cylindrical hopper with a funnel that slidably engages the upper edges of a pair of spaced form walls. While the Danzi device allows wall filling on a continuous basis, but requires many parts and is better suited for large projects.