Shoe dryer recommendations – blower type or pod into show type?

Howdy folks,

Looking to buy a shoe dryer for a house of 2 people regularly doing outdoors stuff (walking, running, cycling) and getting shoes wet and muddy.

Having a quick browse on Amazon, appears there are two types, hot air blowers with hoses you point down the ankle opening of the shoe and a heated pod type device that you place inside each shoe.

Wondered if anyone had experience of either type and could give some pro’s and con’s to see which type would be better for my needs.

The blower type ones appear to be around 300-400W of power while the pods are around 20W of power. So based on power consumption the pod type wins but there might new some downsides …

thank you in advance …

I’ve got the blower type and it works very effectively to turn my wet MTB boots dry for the next morning. You can set a timer and I usually use 30mins, although more like 60mins if the boots are sodden.

Only downside is it is quite lightweight so can overbalance with heavier shoes, so they have to be lent against something.

I went to a holiday house once and they had a great homemade one.

It was basically a small wooden box with two long bits of PVC pipe sticking up out of the top, and a hairdryer poking through a hole in the back. Turn the dryer on and warm air comes out the top… worked a treat.

Depends how quickly you need them dry.

I’ve got one of the big wall mounted blower types, it’s best for drying out absolutely sodden boots, in a short period of time (couple of hours). The small ones take all day just to dry out winter cycling shoes, let alone wet boots.

The small ones do probably use less power overall though. Just get one with a 8-24h timer rather than the shorter ones if you intend to dry out heavy walking boots rather than just trainers. The ones we have in the office I think max out at about 4h and it’s enough to make the insides of northwave boots dry-ish if they’ve got wet, but the outer and some of the padding is still obviously damp.

“Small”

“big”

I have a MaxxDry that I’ve happy enough with. I normally use it in forced air only mode with no heat. They dry well but without encouraging bacterial growth and making things stinking.

If shoes are really hidden, it just been washed, I start out by stuffing them with newspaper. This actually reduces the overall drying time. They go on the dryer maybe an hour later.

Having killed a couple of the standard Amazon two-prong type dryers, we splashed the cash on one of these after a recommendation on here.

https://www.safetygloves.co.uk/maxxdry-work-glove-boot-and-shoe-dryer.html

Absolutely no regrets, it’s great.

I got these: https://www.decathlon.co.uk/p/shoe-glove-dryer/_/R-p-X8790583

They’re used in walking boots which I wear to walk the dog on a twice daily basis. They’re no good if the boots are completely sodden, but they work well if you’re simply drying out damp stuff.

The UV element to keep odours down seems to work well.

Another happy(ish) Maxxdry user. I’m on my second, hoping it’ll keep working longer than the 3.5 years I got out of the first one.

I’ve got both, a wall mounted blower and a pair of warming pods.

The blower is best for actually drying out heavy, sodden/wet kit, don’t put it somewhere with high traffic though, it wafts any shoe type smells around the room. A utility or outhouse is better. The one i have (cheap nasty), dries out soaked hiking boots in a few hours. Cycling shoes in 30 minutes.

The pods will dry a damp boot (sweaty, splashed) or a lightweight shoe that’s been drenched. Also good for warming shoes in the morning before you go out.

Another Maxxdry user hear. I am sure I only paid about £35 for mine though back in the day.

One of the most used electrical items in the house. Shoes last so much longer and smell less from being properly washed and dried.

Thank you all for the info, really appreciate the feedback.

I’ll have think but I’m leaning towards the blower type ones as they give more flexibility ie you can turn them on for ~20mins to dry a damp shoe or ~2h for soaked shoe. Sounds like the pod type ones may take too long for really wet shoes.

We have a utility / garage space where we could keep the dryer so noise and smells are away from the house.