Home boot dryer

[Wade]

I searched and found a few boot dryer topics, but they were mostly focused on small or portable dryers.

I’m looking for a boot / glove dryer for our ski home - 8 pairs is probably about the right capacity.

I found a couple of wall mounted systems that look pretty slick in the $1600 to $2000 range. That’s a LOT more than I thought I might pay for something like this, but from what I can find, that’s what they cost.

W8/8 | Wall mounted 8 pr boot & 8 pr glove dryer (16 boots & 16 gloves TOTAL)

Dry up to 8 pairs of boots and 8 pairs of gloves. Our energy management switch allows you to select either warmed air or ambient air drying. Contact us to order!

www.directdryers.com

https://cozywinters.com/shop/cyclone-008.html

I found a 6 pair free standing floor option for about $800 which looks fine, but it’s not really big enough for what I need, and seems like it wouldn’t be as tidy of a solution as the wall mounted ones.

Rustic Boot Dryer (2, 4 & 6 Pair) — Custom Boot Dryers

Call for pricing. Pricing listed on this product may be outdated. Due to fluctuating raw material cost and daily supply chain adjustments, please call us at 435.901.3438 for availability, accurate pricing and ship costs.

www.custombootdryers.com

Does anyone have something they would recommend? Reviews on all of these seem pretty good, but I would like to hear about other options and get some first hand accounts.

Also, is there a consensus on room temperature vs warmed air for drying? There seem to be some warnings out there against using any sort of heat, but plenty of people use heated boot bags without any adverse effects. I’m sure room temperature air can do the job, but it’s also pretty nice to put on warm boots in the morning.

 

[Philpug]

Depending how handy you are, there are a lot of designs out there that you can make yourself. We mostly just dry ours on our heated bootbag.

 

[mishka]

Depending how handy you are, there are a lot of designs out there that you can make yourself.

DIY dryer .
I build one from PVC . Simple and effective.
I found hairdryer with "cool" button the best which make hairdryer blow only cold air don't have to worry about overheating liners. Dryer can be left for prolonged period of time

 

[oldschoolskier]

Early in the fall Home Depot sells a boot dryer that goes over forced air heating vents for about CDN$10

 

[Jilly]

Home Depot - add in Walmart, Home Hardware, Giant Tiger.....just about anywhere for that one. Think it holds 3 or 4 prs.

 

[Wade]

Thanks.

So I’m probably a 6 (maybe 7 on a good day) on the handy scale. I mount my own bindings, tune and repair skis, install lights, install door locks, hang shelves etc. I haven’t done much carpentry though, and don’t have great faith I would pull off an 8 pair boot dryer in a way that will look good in a pretty visible area of the condo.

The smaller solutions look good for what they are, but I’m looking for something that will accommodate 8 pairs of boots (and maybe gloves), and would prefer not to have 8 (or even 4) units lined up. Seems like it wouldn’t be the neatest solution out there.

 

[Jwrags]

If the dryer is near living space then finding a very quiet fan would be important to me. If you ski in a reasonably dry climate then heated air should not be needed, which simplifies things.

 

[Philpug]

Thanks.

So I’m probably a 6 (maybe 7 on a good day) on the handy scale. I mount my own bindings, tune and repair skis, install lights, install door locks, hang shelves etc. I haven’t done much carpentry though, and don’t have great faith I would pull off an 8 pair boot dryer in a way that will look good in a pretty visible area of the condo.

No worries, you can easily spend 3-5 times the cost of the nicest one on the market just in tools and materials to build it from scratch.

 

[lone pine]

I made one for my old VT ski house out of 4" PVC pipe about 3 feet long. On one end was affixed an A/C duct fan, and the other end was plugged. I attached eight 3/4" dishwasher exhaust tubing sections of varying lengths to pvc fittings that screwed into the 4" pipe. I heated up an old 3/4" boiler sill cock to soften the 4" pipe to cut in some threads for the pvc fittings. The unit pushed room temperature air into four pair of boots. Total cost was under $50. I mounted it horizontally over my work bench where the boots would stand overnight. I wish I had some photos.

 

[cantunamunch]

Ok. That's it. Everyone?

The next industrial design student that signs up and posts a link to a survey is to be given this mission:

8 pair boot dryer in a way that

+

will look good in a pretty visible area of the condo.

And the next 3 after that one too.

 

[Dave Marshak]

I made one for my old VT ski house out of 4" PVC pipe about 3 feet long. On one end was affixed an A/C duct fan, and the other end was plugged. I attached eight 3/4" dishwasher exhaust tubing sections of varying lengths to pvc fittings that screwed into the 4" pipe. I heated up an old 3/4" boiler sill cock to soften the 4" pipe to cut in some threads for the pvc fittings. The unit pushed room temperature air into four pair of boots. Total cost was under $50. I mounted it horizontally over my work bench where the boots would stand overnight. I wish I had some photos.

This ^^^^

We had one like that for about 20 pairs of boots at a mountain where I worked. It didn't even have fittings for the vinyl tubes, we just drilled holes wherever we need them. We put it on a timer to let it run an hour every night. That worked fine without heat, even in the East. You may need to use larger diameter PVC pipe if you make it too long because air will not distribute evenly if it moves too fast through the pipe. You can make even cheaoer if you use a plastic box instead of a PVC pipe for the plenum.

$1600 for a boot dryer is nuts.

dm

 

[Henry]

Wade, a couple of things to consider...moisture will move from warm to cool. Moisture will also move from more-moist to less-moist. Moisture must have an exit route. Let the moist air out of the boot as you put in drier air. So...

Any drier unit must either have air flow to get the moisture out or a heat source inside the boot with the boot upright so the warm, now-moist air can rise out. (Hot air rises...that's why your CEO has an office on the top floor.) A 120 volt axial fan (muffin fan), say 110 cubic feet per minute (CFM) of flow will be about as quiet as a large computer fan and cost about $20 for the fan. A drying rack with good air flow without heat will dry the boots, but in a longer time than one with mild heat. (I stayed in a hotel in Austria that had a boot room. Sounds great, but the room had no exhaust fan. They cranked up the heat and the room was a sauna full of hot moist boots. Oops.) A fan needs a finger guard for safety.

I found this about sound levels: Measured in decibels (dB), volume ratings indicate how much noise equipment makes. Some common volume levels include a whisper @ 20 dB, a refrigerator @ 40 dB, a conversation @ 60 dB, and a light machine shop @ 90 dB. OSHA recommends hearing protection for exposure to 80 dB and greater.

 

[Dwight]

Ok, I'll bite.

How big of an area do you have for the equipment?
Is there a forced-air vent close by?
What electrical outlets do you have in the area and what amperage?
Do you want stacked boot shelving or in one row?
Do you need heated? (probably not, if you have a night to run air)
Do you want it to look like boot dryer or like furniture?
What is your budget?

For $1600 you can purchase a lot of these.

 

[John Webb]

I made one 40 years ago. A cardboard lipton soup box, 2 VW heater hoses and a computer fan (120V from a junk box at work) Total cost $ 4.00
It fell apart after 10 years so I made a better one. A round piece of PVC pipe, 4ea 2 ft pieces of air duct hose, a metal plate and another free 120V computer fan.
cost about $ 15 -mostly for the hoses. Air is fine. You do not need heat.

I could have used safer 12V DC fans but 120v fans were easier to get. I also get along well with electricity !

 

[LiquidFeet]

.... Air is fine. You do not need heat....

That's the important part people sometimes don't believe. All it takes is a fan.

 

[cantunamunch]

That's the important part people sometimes don't believe. All it takes is a fan.

For the combination of "looks good" and "quiet" I really like Bob Barnes' old trick of an aquarium pump and tubing that can drop down to the toe of the boot. And it is a lot easier (and quieter) to make an aquarium tubing Y-splitter tree than a splitter fan manifold.

I have yet to meet an 8-pair (16 boots) fan unit that meets those two criteria - and I certainly wouldn't want to have the job of air manifold design that would actually distribute that air flow evenly and quietly to 16 boots.

We know @Dwight can make good-looking shelving that will hold 16 boots / 130lbs+ but integrating airflow into that...*goes back to aquarium pump idea*

 

[Dave Marshak]

An aquarium pump is the perfect solution for one pair of boots, but it gets spendy when you scale up to 8 or 10 pairs.
IT actually surprises me that inexpensive multiple pair dryers are not available commercially.All you need to do is to skip the splitters and manifold and just use a large enough plenum. A plastic tool box or a length of large diameter PVC pipe work fine. Dryiing doesn't require much air flow so it really isn't that noisy. Putting it all on a timer and running it only at night usually solves the problem if the noise is objectionable.

dm

 

[Tom K.]

One thing that might help is to remove the gloves from consideration.

I've got a little trick I came up with decades ago: I simply insert the screen section from an irrigation Y-strainer into each glove and hang them with the openings up. It's amazing how well they dry when they are opened up and pointing upwards.. No heat, no blower, never had a glove that was still damp the next morning.

 

[raytseng]

my take is that the products are meant for commercial volume speed. like get it dry in 30m to 1hr for a rental shop /skating rink/locker room/or lodge drying service. That is why it is high cost for high volume use and 900w of power.

If you are only going for your personal ski house and have overnight to dryn then you dont need that volume or power.
I believe your personal design aesthetics should weigh in a lot on this. Will agree that if you have low humidity as typical in ski houses: having dry airflow is going to do the bulk of the job, and you don't necessary need heat.
I would also agree to simplify take gloves out of the equation. You can hang those up on hooks in airflow. If they dont dry overnight, it is easier to just get extra gloves and alternate sets than trying yo include the gloves into a complicated drying system.

You can also downsize and you dont need 8pair setup if you have the whole night for just your house.

For example put 4pairs on to dry when you get back and over dinner, then swap the other 4pairs before going to sleep for overnight - of course assuming you remember to do the swap.

 

[RobSN]

I have a couple of Dryguy Force Dry heaters. They cost about $50 each, and Amazon has competition that are only about $35 each. Aren't we over-complicating matters? Give everyone one such dryer. Done.