Dry Out Your Ski Boots Quickly

On many a spring day I've come home from an epic day up on the mountain only to find that my boots are nothing but a spongy bucket of sweat. On multi day ski trips, when you need to use your boots multiple days in a row, this is a huge problem. Those commercial boot dryers, you know, the heated cylinders, are interminably slow and you usually just end up with a hot spongy mess instead of a cold spongy mess come morning. Not a fun way to start an epic day on the mountain!

Well, my experience has taught me that airflow will do a lot more to evaporate water than heat. So, to get your boots as dry as possible, try using a little forced air instead of heat. The best way to accomplish this is to just grab a couple of case fans and an old AC adapter that outputs 12 volts.

Step 1: First Connect the Wires

Use those little cylindrical crimp style connectors. They give you the fastest, safest, and most robust connection. First touching the adapter wires to the fan wires and see which way makes them spin. Then just stuff everything into the connectors and go for it!

Comments

[supreme creator]

nice now my boots won't be so wet and thank you josefski

[TheTunaMan]

How about pulling the liners out of the boots, this would have to speed up the process. Speed is the key here, we all know about "swamp foot". Great Idea!! Gotta build 1 now!

[josefski]

Thanks! Pulling out the liners makes it lightning fast. Most of the time I don't need to, though.

[Andsetinn]

Since air takes the path of least resistance this probably wont get the toes dry. You would need hoses or something to reach that far into the boots. Good instructible though, clear and informative. It is an interesting fact that you don't need heat to dry your boots. A flow of (relatively) dry air should dry them out in about an hour.

[josefski]

I assumed it wouldn't dry out the toes either. Turns out it does just fine. There's enough turbulence in there that there is no need for a pipe.

[hanlin_y]

That's so cool! Never thought of that.

[zieak]

I have been wanting to make something similar for a while - great job! I wanted to use pvc to make glove and boot dryers and use the old cpu fans like you have.

[chefsea]

So you could grill or smoke food with this setup? Cool!

[ksqrd]

Great idea!
Are you blowing into the boot, or pulling air out?

[josefski]

Blowing in. My partner and I use them every day and still cant believe how well they work. I have even successfully used them for wet gloves.

[audreyobscura]

Genius! Soggy boots are the WORST

[iPodGuy]

Well done! I will be doing this!

[siliconghost]

Love this idea! Very simple solution to an age-old problem without resorting to expensive boot dryers. Well done.