To Desiccant or not to Desiccant - That is the Question

[KingGrump]

About 10 years back I bought a Seirus boot dryer. The lady at the ski shop told me as she rang up the sale that I would be back within a month. Seems that they had some serious warranty issues with them.She was right, I was back twice more that season to exchange the dryers. I decided at that time to exercise some of my fabrication skills and build myself an industrial duty boot dryer out of PVC tubing and a 120V muffin fan from W.W. Granger. You DO NOT need heat to dry your boots. A soft gentle movement of air with an exit is sufficient. The unit pictured below will dry a pair of boots in about 30 minutes but will hold up if it is forgotten and left on all night. The Seirus unit cost $49.95 and I have less than $40 in mine. With the PVC tubes and elbows you do not need to glue the joints and therefore you can break it down as necessary for travel or storage.
View attachment 27707 View attachment 27708

Gotta love the bowl flange interface.
So if you ski like crap, you know where that comes from.

 

[1chris5]

there's also this creepy thing to stick on tubes so the air can actually get into the fingers. for peet dryers.
http://www.thewarmingstore.com/peet-glove-dryports.html?productid=peet-glove-dryports

I suppose sticking with the DIY theme, you can also get handy with some wire coat hangers to make your own glove spreader to promote airflow and drying.

I was like: "how could this glove dryer be creepy?" You're right - that product is extremely creepy! I would have to buy a safe to stick this product in for storage - my kids would demand it.

 

[1chris5]

Awesome suggestions. Thank you! I like the recommendations regarding not using a heating element. I'm thinking some simple configuration of plastic tote, a 12x12 camping fan and pvc pipes. Will have to draw out design for prototype. This is for home use only.

 

[SBrown]

Dessicant is fine if you're a counter-tenor. Talk about outliers, though.

We can always count on you ... castrati jokes next?

 

[1chris5]

I leave my boots in my heated boot bag over night was the second setting and they are warm and dry the next day.

I like your heated boot bag idea. I'm going to shop for that.

 

[PeterMN]

With 3 kids, wife and myself our family has a lot of equipment to dry, having a few of those dry guys on the floor was too much clutter in the small entry area and putting them on top of counters was asking for a boot on a kids head.

Our entry from the garage has a spot that we had a bench for sitting to tie shoes etc.

As a hobby my father enjoys building furniture, he has built dining tables and chairs for his home and family, among a few other smaller projects.

So I came up with an idea to incorporate a boot dryer into a bench that would be custom fit to the little spot near my garage entry, about 30" wide by 20" deep or so.

I sourced all of the parts - timer, fan etc from Grainger.... and no heat for my custom insoles.

The final product is quarter sawn solid oak, dyed then stained and sealed. All joints are free hand cut mortise and tenon - no screws. The top opens to allow access to the timer and tubes etc. The drying chamber is incorporated into the structure of the bench... anyway we think it came out looking pretty good.

Those are my kids boots, but I can fit 3 pair and some gloves under the top, or 4 pair boots if I am good at boot Tetris.

He has since made a few more for family members. Hope you think its as cool as I do.
View media item 1737

 

[jmills115]

With 3 kids, wife and myself our family has a lot of equipment to dry, having a few of those dry guys on the floor was too much clutter in the small entry area and putting them on top of counters was asking for a boot on a kids head.

Our entry from the garage has a spot that we had a bench for sitting to tie shoes etc.

As a hobby my father enjoys building furniture, he has built dining tables and chairs for his home and family, among a few other smaller projects.

So I came up with an idea to incorporate a boot dryer into a bench that would be custom fit to the little spot near my garage entry, about 30" wide by 20" deep or so.

I sourced all of the parts - timer, fan etc from Grainger.... and no heat for my custom insoles.

The final product is quarter sawn solid oak, dyed then stained and sealed. All joints are free hand cut mortise and tenon - no screws. The top opens to allow access to the timer and tubes etc. The drying chamber is incorporated into the structure of the bench... anyway we think it came out looking pretty good.

Those are my kids boots, but I can fit 3 pair and some gloves under the top, or 4 pair boots if I am good at boot Tetris.

He has since made a few more for family members. Hope you think its as cool as I do.
View media item 1737

With 3 kids, wife and myself our family has a lot of equipment to dry, having a few of those dry guys on the floor was too much clutter in the small entry area and putting them on top of counters was asking for a boot on a kids head.

Our entry from the garage has a spot that we had a bench for sitting to tie shoes etc.

As a hobby my father enjoys building furniture, he has built dining tables and chairs for his home and family, among a few other smaller projects.

So I came up with an idea to incorporate a boot dryer into a bench that would be custom fit to the little spot near my garage entry, about 30" wide by 20" deep or so.

I sourced all of the parts - timer, fan etc from Grainger.... and no heat for my custom insoles.

The final product is quarter sawn solid oak, dyed then stained and sealed. All joints are free hand cut mortise and tenon - no screws. The top opens to allow access to the timer and tubes etc. The drying chamber is incorporated into the structure of the bench... anyway we think it came out looking pretty good.

Those are my kids boots, but I can fit 3 pair and some gloves under the top, or 4 pair boots if I am good at boot Tetris.

He has since made a few more for family members. Hope you think its as cool as I do.
View media item 1737

Quality, how much to ship to Utah

 

[PTskier]

The goal is to move moisture out of the boots or gloves. Moisture moves due to a temperature difference...from warm to cool...and from a moisture content difference...from damp to dry until equalized.

So...just air flow works but is slow; more air flow works better. Just heat, if the heat sets up convection currents and the air carries the moisture away, works but not if the thing is sealed; if it's sealed you have a steam bath. Heat plus air flow works fastest.

I like the idea of getting a bench that fits the room, then adding a fan, distribution pipe, and hoses for the boot drying. If the bench is near a room heater, so much the better.

The heated boot bag is really good to have plugged into the car for the drive to the ski hill. Get there and slip into warm, softened plastic boots. De. Luxe. The boot bags I've seen have both 12v DC and 120v AC power connections.

 

[PeterMN]

The goal is to move moisture out of the boots or gloves. Moisture moves due to a temperature difference...from warm to cool...and from a moisture content difference...from damp to dry until equalized.

So...just air flow works but is slow; more air flow works better. Just heat, if the heat sets up convection currents and the air carries the moisture away, works but not if the thing is sealed; if it's sealed you have a steam bath. Heat plus air flow works fastest.

I like the idea of getting a bench that fits the room, then adding a fan, distribution pipe, and hoses for the boot drying. If the bench is near a room heater, so much the better.

The heated boot bag is really good to have plugged into the car for the drive to the ski hill. Get there and slip into warm, softened plastic boots. De. Luxe. The boot bags I've seen have both 12v DC and 120v AC power connections.

My experience is exactly what @PTskier states... the question is how much heat is too much.

I have ruined a pair of custom insoles from too much heat... and possibly a function of the style of dryer I was using at the time. The dryer was one of those industrial/commercial driers, like you would see at a hotel or rental shop, with the metal tubes that hold the boots upside down as they are drying. The direct heat and pressure of the tip of the drying tube pushed through the insoles and damaged them. I have no idea what the temp setting was or if it was possible to change the setting on that particular dryer... I just stopped using that unit. Since then I have only used room temp air.

With the Dry Guy forced air style dryers and other room temp dryers I have found that 3 hours is sufficient to dry just about anything completely... with my bench I have a 2, 4, 8, 12 hour timer... I set it at night and in morning we are good to go.

@jmills115 - Glad that you like the bench... having a bench custom fit to the little spot works pretty good.

 

[jmills115]

First off, unless the room is particularly cold or moist, you don't need heat to dry your boots overnight. I'd think desiccant would need replacing and run up your cost. If you want to construct a simple box and tube thing, look at these. Those are what I'll use if I ever build a boot dryer:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00IJ2J2K0/

I bought these for a PVC build and wonder if they are strong enough. They don't push much air but will piece something together and let you know how it works.

 

[pais alto]

I bought these for a PVC build and wonder if they are strong enough. They don't push much air but will piece something together and let you know how it works.

Let us know.

Where I work they have commercial boot dryers in the locker room that used to be in the rental shop. They blow room air, no heat, and the flow isn't that strong - the single fan (which looks like those that I linked) is about 4 inches in diameter and it blows into a long chamber with flexible tubes that come out for about 6 pairs of boots. They run all night and our boots have always been dry in the morning.

They look a lot like this, but without the glove part, because they go under our changing benches:

I think that it's easy to overthink/over-engineer this.

 

[MattFromCanada]

I went for an even cheaper and compact design:

Intel CPU fans are cheap at around $5 each (or less if you have a few lying around like I did). And since they're round, you can stick them right in the boots when they're done up. Hook up to a 12v power adapter, (black wire is negative, yellow is positive) and away it goes. It's worked wonderfully, and takes up no space when travelling.

 

[oldschoolskier]

I use the $8.00 plastic dryer that fits over the hot air vent on the forced air heating system. Dries at no extra cost over night and it's never too hot.

 

[jmills115]

Let us know.

Where I work they have commercial boot dryers in the locker room that used to be in the rental shop. They blow room air, no heat, and the flow isn't that strong - the single fan (which looks like those that I linked) is about 4 inches in diameter and it blows into a long chamber with flexible tubes that come out for about 6 pairs of boots. They run all night and our boots have always been dry in the morning.

They look a lot like this, but without the glove part, because they go under our changing benches:

I think that it's easy to overthink/over-engineer this.

My plan was for additional pvc to extend more into a liner or glove. After multiple visits, I got tired of walking around Home Depot without finding the pieces I needed and called it good with what I had so far. It works well and will dry items within a few hours

 

[Black Dog]

I just thought of a great idea,take your liners out of your boots at night.

 

[James]

I like heat. Damp air in the 50's, not so great in the East.

 

[tromano]

I just thought of a great idea,take your liners out of your boots at night.

This is what I do.

 

[Doug Briggs]

How does taking the liners out of the boot help dry out the inside of the liner? Interestingly, my boots never get wet between the shell and the liner. It is all between the foot and the liner.

I take my liners out of my boots to take my boots off so I just place my liners so that they get the warm air from the vent. If I'm going skiing the next day, I just put the shells and the liners, separately, into the heated boot bag.

 

[Black Dog]

I ski 50 day a year, take my liners out after skiing and put near the heat register or vent and never had a problem with them being dry the next morning. If you are are sleeping in a damp room in that is 50 degrees you got bigger problems than having dry boots.

 

[Dave Marshak]

How does taking the liners out of the boot help dry out the inside of the liner? Interestingly, my boots never get wet between the shell and the liner. It is all between the foot and the liner.

My boots take on water almost every day. Other boots rarely leak water into them. It's important to dry the shells if you have water.

I use the $8.00 plastic dryer that fits over the hot air vent on the forced air heating system. Dries at no extra cost over night and it's never too hot.

That disrupts the HVAC system and risks making the whole house smell like the inside of boots. It's also less effective in the spring when the system doesn't run much.

My shoes live on one of these:

It's on a timer that runs about an hour every night.

You could make a cold air dryer for 6 pairs for <$50 even if you had to buy all new parts. All you need is small fan, a timer, a box for a plenum and some vinyl hose.

dm