Construction Description of a Boot Dryer That Uses Cold Air
Well, the reason for this article is the new boots that I bought a while ago. I had a pair of the type “baking steps” before, and in them, it was easy to pull out the inner shoe to dry them after a day of riding.
Then I bought a pair of Tecnica TNT8, those tight racing boots, which did wonders for my skiing, but that was not what I was going to talk about.
The thing was that the inner shoe was stuck so tight that there was almost a risk of damaging it with each pull-out / deposit. Then the idea arose to fix a “shoe dryer,” which would be the solution. Had long ago had such heating rods to dry boots with, but they had pie with time.
In addition, I had seen quite clever constructions in various foreign ski magazines, with only a fan and a few hoses/pipes that were pushed down into the boots without taking out the inner shoe. I wanted that, but the price was high, and besides, I did not find one in the local shops.
Home and think had an old pc fan at home lying around; an old model made for 220VAC. It was not big, about 10x10cm, just right! I took it and pressed it into a plastic jar; for me, it was a type of freezer, a little bigger than the fan.
Made holes for the fan outlet and screwed it to the bottom of the jar. Then I took and made two holes in the lid to the jar where I attached two plastic hoses (with a diameter of about 3cm) – length about 40-50cm each, sealed the whole jar with glue gun / hot melt glue then it was ready.
It looked like hell, but it actually blew some air out of the hoses when you hit the misery! I have now used that boot dryer for two years; it dries the boots completely dry WITHOUT taking out the inner shoe in about 4-5 hours !!! It makes a little difference to go out on the slopes in the morning with dry boots!
Using only cold air means that the boots are not damaged by heat when drying, then I have heard that heat can “bake” in the nice smell of foot sweat. Some of today’s boots are empty of the type that shapes to the foot, so it is smarter to dry them without heat.
The project requires some knowledge in electricity/electronics, so do not connect with high voltages yourself if you feel insecure, but otherwise, it is easy to build and cheap! Good luck!
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