Combined Heat and Toast is a new type of domestic central heating product. The furnace or boiler can be solid-fuel, oil or gas powered; the main requirement is that it has a substantial glowing-red-hot component deep within its bowels, and that the unit is installed in or beneath the kitchen.

On the top of the heating furnace is located the Toast Interface Coupling which consists of a smooth chute with mecahanical toothed conveyor-belt-like side manipulators. This chute can be specified in various lengths, from a foot or so for an under-the-counter installation, to a five meter run for a basement furnace. The chute runs up through a slot cut in the kitchen floor and/or worktop surface, and terminates at its top end in a toaster-shaped enclosure fitted with the usual control knobs.

It should be possible to order custom-made chute runs with joints and corners to allow the use of a remote furnace up to [xx] meters above or beyond the kitchen. The specs of this should be worked out and inserted here before finalising the description of the system.

To use the apparatus, the user inserts two slices of bread into the slots in the top of the toaster-shaped enclosure mounted on the kitchen worktop, and then presses the lever downwards, just like if they were using a normal stand-alone electric toaster. The chute toothed conveyor belt like movers rapidly convey the bread down the chute into position in front of the roaringly red-hot furnace core. After the appropriate time as pre-set on the kitchen enclosure control panel, the slices are flipped through 180° around an axis running parallel to the planar surface of the slice of bread, thus bringing the previously un-toasted face close to and facing the furnace core. Again after an appropriate wait, the toast is returned at high speed up through the chute to the toaster enclosure on the kitchen worktop, where it is then pushed upwards a few inches by a mechanical lever making a satisfying "clunk" sound.

Benefits: Toast toasted rapidly in front of a red-hot furnace core will taste much better than toast toasted slowly in front of a feebly glowing resistance wire.

Disadvantages: I can't think of any.
-- pocmloc, Feb 19 2020

<Obligatory>

"What could possibly go wrong ?"*

[+]

<Oblgatory/>

Can there be a radiothemal version ? "Sterilizes as it cooks ! "

*Other than a multitude of single points of failure, at any one of which a minor undetectable malfunction will result in the entire premises being burnt to the ground**.

**Or even lower, if the heat source is positioned in the basement.
-- 8th of 7, Feb 19 2020


I understand that the better Cambridge colleges have operated this system since the 1600s. Indeed, at Corpus it remains the only means of providing either food or heat.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 19 2020


If you've witnessed the state of cleanliness of any conveyor-style toaster at any college campus, now imagine the state of cleanliness of a much larger piece of equipment which also traverses through inaccessible and unseen parts of your basement.
-- RayfordSteele, Feb 19 2020


//either food or heat.// should have a word with the domestic burser; its meant to provide both.
-- pocmloc, Feb 19 2020


// burser //

Sp. "Bursar"*

We didn't address the microbiological issues, as they're much less dramatic and entertaining than leaping flames, FLAMES, AHAHAHA ! FLAMES, LEAPING AND DANCING, SWIRLS OF FIRE DESTROYING EVERYTHING THEY TOUCH, BURN IT ALL MUHWHAHAHAHAHAHA<Coughing/>

Ahem.

We, er, know rather more about combustion than microbiology.

*Add Dried Frog Pills until stable**

**for a given value of "stable" ...
-- 8th of 7, Feb 19 2020


The only real problem is the beasties will get half your toast en route.
-- Voice, Feb 19 2020


OK so the slice of bread is not carried naked through the chute, but is encased in a snugly form-fitting enclosure. The enclosure is propelled through the chutes and is then opened at the lower end to allow toasting.
-- pocmloc, Feb 20 2020


A pneumatic tube would be a good mechanism. However, the circular cross-section of the tube is at odds with the planar form of the toast (on the return trip - bread can be curved for transport, then flattened, but not toast).

So either the tube needs an flattened elipsoidal profile (quite practical) or the toast needs to be returned in the form of "soldiers".
-- 8th of 7, Feb 20 2020



random, halfbakery