Boot Dryer!

After too many embarrassing moments involving the odor of my sailing boots and gloves (it gets hot and sweaty here in Texas!), I decided that there had to be a better solution than just letting them air out in my utility room, taking days to dry. Clothes dryer? Nah, probably not any good for the boots. But if only I could force that warm air through them...

I spent some time browsing online and found a number of ski boot dryers which might fit the bill. REI had one for $80, but it would only accommodate a single pair of boots, and no gloves. I also wanted to be able to dry two pairs of boots and two pairs of gloves, as my new crew and girlfriend would be moving in soon, and I didn't want her to suffer from the same offensive odors. Time to get out the PVC glue and build my own!

My basic idea was to use a hairdryer at low speed, with or without heat, connected to 2" PVC tubing which would tee off to smaller sections going to each boot or glove. I thought I could find a reducing tee going from 2" to 1" or 3/4", but none of the local hardware stores had such a fitting. This added a little bit of cost with separate 2" tees and reducers, but in the end I kept the whole project to less than $50, not including a ten-ish dollar hair dryer. Here is the final parts list:

3x 2" 90 degree elbows
7x 2" tees
8x 2" to 3/4" reducer
1x 2" rubber coupler with hose clamps
4x 3/4" 45 degree elbows
4x 3/4" end caps (to only dry 4 items)
1x hairdryer
1x Christmas light timer
1 section of 2" pipe
1 section of 3/4" pipe

I'm sure there are a dozen ways to make this work, but here is what I ended up building:

Basically, I figure the boots need a bit more airflow to dry in the same amount of time as the gloves, so I put the 45 degree bend in the 3/4" pipe in the two closest positions to the hair dryer on each side where they should get slightly higher pressure and flow. This should allow the air to get all the way into the toe box of the boots. I also designed it such that the the hair dryer extension provides support to the whole structure. I did not glue the tee between the hairdryer and main sections so that I could disconnect them, providing relatively flat storage of the two pieces. And the hair dryer is, of course, connected via the rubber coupler and secured with hose clamps. Here are a couple of action shots:

Initially I was worried about the glue in my boots and did not want to use heat from the hairdryer. On the low setting, though, the air does not get that hot, and it is further cooled in the plumbing, resulting in something not much hotter than 100 degrees at the boots / gloves. I originally set my timer for three hours with the hairdryer on low, but now I set it to only two hours before I go to bed, and everything is dry as a bone the next morning. After cleaning everything with MiraZyme and a few sailing sessions followed by my new quick dryer, my boots no longer smell. Problem solved just in time before my girlfriend moved in!