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I do a fair bit of off road running / biking in mud, and we now have a dog that means boots are constantly wet.
Mrs FD is getting fed up of shoes on radiators, and I know for a fact that doing this has damaged some of my trainers.
Are all electric shoe drying racks created equally or are some better than others? They also look a bit naff too from what I can see (vain I know)
My shoes dry in the open fronted woodshed by the back door, doesn't take long especially at this time of year when there's generally a decent wind. five tens, road and trail running shoes, walking boots, all live outside and only get brought in when they're dry.
I've got one that blows air rather than just heats them. Seems to be relatively effective, although overnight on the radiator is still king.
I use an alectric fan shoe/boot drier. I bought it earlier this year and it's been great. Does gloves too.
I just stick newspaper in mine, swop it out when its soaked up the moisture. Takes a couple of swops and they just dry inside. No radiator or heater. Finish the ride wet, normally they are dry the following day.
I did see a youtube review vid of some cheap boot driers thet caught fire due to dodgy wiring.
Perhaps a nice warm housefire could be all you need to dry your boots 🙂
I’ve just bought the heavy duty Maxx dryer off Amazon, what a god send it’s been, it would dry out 2 pairs of 5:10’s in a overnight after getting them totally soaked on Dartmoor. It’s a fan with a 40w warmer and four spouts you can stick boots or gloves on.
Newspaper? Well, I suppose it's one use for them. We never buy one so not an option anyway.
I bought one of the air blowing ones on Amazon last year and it’s brilliant fir drying bike shoes, work boots etc.
I can now happily hose any mud off my bike shoes after a ride, stick them on the dryer for 90 min and they are dry.
Remove insoles and place them loose in immersion cupboard, hook wet shoes over uppermost set of ironing board legs, which is stored in said cupboard.
More wet shoes? Need more ironing boards. 😉
I use the newspaper approach. Get loads of free ones like metro and city am. Usually takes two rounds of newspaper, plus insoles out
For damp shoes/boots I bought some hacky sack type things with desiccant in them, basically work the same as newspaper and you then leave the balls to dry out on a radiator. Can't actually find these now but more engineered options e.g. drysure are available
I also have one of the electric hot air boot dryer things but it takes a long time to work, is fairly noisy and I've never really felt comfortable with letting it run unattended (somewhere I can't hear it...) for a couple of hours. I guess timer switches etc. would probably help.
Yeah timer on my drier is 45mins max IIRC. TBH it doesn't get very warm, it's the throughput of air that does the trick.
In the process of making my own boot drier, mainly for ski boots as the other option is for them to lie in front of the kitchen plinth heater.
Have a look on Pintrest for diy boot driers.
I'm using an old fan/convector heater with a MDF box on top and 6x50mm kopex tubes from it. Will have the heater on the lowest setting and use a timer switch as well.
Ok so blown air looks to be the way forward, other than ending my marriage !
Ming - is this the one you have?
Yes it is.
I use the drying room in Fire station.
Got a much cheaper version than that and it works really well...I'm genuinely interested to know how warm the house has to be to have a soaked shoe dry overnight if not put on or in a source of heat...my soaked shoes takes days to dry if I don't assist (and they take over a week if left outside to dry).
Shoe dryer is excellent, it isn't warm air, but it isn't cool either, moving air definitely helps dry things quickly.
I’m genuinely interested to know how warm the house has to be to have a soaked shoe dry overnight if not put on or in a source of heat…my soaked shoes takes days to dry if I don’t assist (and they take over a week if left
+1 to all of that
Many moons ago I built my own boot dryer out of some flexible pipe, a laptop PSU, two big server scroll fans and a desert wine bottle shipping box. Works brilliantly.
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Anyone used the passive shoe dryers? Like these https://www.amazon.co.uk/DRYSURE-Extreme-Boot-Dryer-Electricity/dp/B07JGV1J81/ref=pd_cp_200_1/257-7704684-4079746?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B07JGV1J81&pd_rd_r=692c44c8-7d51-40b2-bd27-fd401ebc0230&pd_rd_w=8nkIa&pd_rd_wg=gKl0G&pf_rd_p=1ed602c2-81bc-4963-a32e-87d65a0bdbac&pf_rd_r=TYJXA79YR96XVYDXSMX1&refRID=TYJXA79YR96XVYDXSMX1
I’d consider a passive device, don’t really want to run a power source just to dry them
Rather than blowing hot air into them, anyone tried a small cupboard with a dehumidifier? Planning to build a new unit for our hallway and thinking of including something along those lines. Can get fairly small portable dehumidifiers that shut off once it’s dry enough.
Used to have a passive shoe dryer thing called a Boot Snake. Was basically just 500g of silica gel in a cotton sock with the end stitched shut. They worked pretty well, but you had to keep them recharged by shoving them in the oven every so often. They also STANK and would transmit stench from ski boots to everything else you put them near.
I rest my home made dryer on top of the boiler cupboard. You can dry a coupe of pairs of sodden 5tens overnight.
Don't blow hot air!
It 'bakes in' the stink, etc
Blow cold air. This serves to simply, rapidly accelerate the natural air drying
I use a hairdryer on cold. It dries each shoe out, completely and entirely in about 7 minutes. It MUST be on cold. You can use hot and two things will happen: 1) the shoe will definitely dry much quicker - think two minutes, but it will stay and get stinky. 2) the hairdryer will either start melting and/or cut off because it's overheating. Ask me how I know.
Hairdryer on cold. It simply rapidly accelerates natural air drying.
I believe this to be a significantly more effective method for drying shoes than letting them dry naturally. Because that means leaving them to continue to fester for 1-3 days.
I ride in the wet a lot so I do this a lot...
Thanks all I’ve gone for the one I’ve linked above