Best Current Boot Heater

Supposedly, the difference is the lasting power. If she will ski in a cold climate and stay out all day, go for the 4. If she skis only a few hours each day, the 3's are more than adequate. I use the 3's and love them.

 

I will give you 1 piece of advice given to me by someone in the know. Before your first use, charge them for 48 hours. I do this before the first day of the season too. Also, drain them fully every once in a while before a charge. This helps to "train" the battery.

 

When I am done skiing for the day, I leave the heaters on and they help dry out the boot.

I got the Therm-ic Basic battery packs for K as her boots came with the heater part already installed. They use standard rechargeable AAs (I got Everready recharge batteries) which you need to remove to recharge. They work all day for her, and you can carry a spare set of batteries if you really need them. They were very reasonably priced on Amazon (I think I spent under $100 for the heaters and batteries with chargers).

 

K used to have cold feet skiing. Not anymore.

Intuition liners. 

My wife has Raynaud's, which of course means hear hands, feet, nose & ears get cold easily due to reduced blood flow.  We have the M4 hotronics and they help quite a bit.  On the coldest days, I could use a bit more - I am thinking of getting BootGloves to help with the insulation.

i had to use heaters until i got some technicas that fit me. Now i use something called boot glove which is a neoprene cover.

 

I love boot gloves. They're like a koozies for your feet! The thing to remember is just like a koozy, wrap something cold and you'll keep it cold. Wrap it warm and you'll keep it warm.

Also a believer in Intuition liners. I tend to unbuckle my boots on the lift to let the heat out (not from discomfort).

Maybe the Full Monte is the way to go; intuition liners, boot heater, and boot gloves.

Also curious to learn about boot heating solutions - I've been doing a lot of research and there are so many helpful posts on this topic!

 

I have small, wide feet with a high arch/instep. My boots are I think size 22.5? I've had them expanded through heat-molding to make room for the wide feet (I kept losing feeling in the balls of my feet before), and I wear thin SmartWool socks and generally keep the instep buckle loose the whole time. After about an hour my toes start to go numb still, so I'm looking for the next options.

 

My boots are a Salomon Divine model that appear to be Therm-ic ready (they have the little therm-ic straps sticking out the backs). Given that, if I'm looking for a heating/insulation system a step above boot gloves, should I just go for therm-ic, or is it worth considering the Intuition liners? I just figure if the boots are already equipped for Therm-ic it seems the easiest option, but I'll go another route if it's better.

 

I'm debating whether to bite the bullet and get the heating system upfront, or if I should first try some of the tips like talc powder/cayenne pepper and boot gloves - I bought boot gloves at the end of last season and didn't really get a chance to try them out, but given how I need to buckle and unbuckle a lot to improve circulation I'm wondering if it's even the best option, and if cutting out holes around the buckles would make me lose out on too much of the insulation. Basically is there enough marginal value to these methods to make a difference, or will I probably still end up needing heat packs/liners?

 

If anyone has had experience with this I'd love to hear your input! For reference, I'll be skiing mostly in New England :)

The Therm-ic system worked great for K. She skis happy now. You have half the system already and their battery system works well. I got K's on Amazon.

Check out Jim's post to make sure the fit isn't a source of the problem. 

Example: 

I had an issue with my second toe going numb first then the big toe, then the rest would follow. Fixed an issue with the instep where the boot was putting pressure on a vein on the top of my foot and have had no numbness since. 

 

Outside that, I have Hotronic4's in my boots and love them.   I do like warm feet. 

As far as warmers go though, get the M4s. More battery is good. Even if she doesn't stay out that long, it just means she can turn them up higher.

+1 for Therm-ic with standard AA batteries.

 

Put a set in, and if the day is brutally cold, just put another set in your pack and change them out. If you do the rechargeable battery pack, you run the risk of running out of juice.

Isn't Therm-ic in bankruptcy?

 

Bummer - given the prices they charged it's amazing they'd have financial difficulties.

 

I have a pretty significant investment in their stuff with 5 or 6 pairs of boots over 4 quivers around the continent - are any of the hotronics parts interchangeable, particularly the connector piece into the batteries?

The nice thing about the Basics, if you can get them, is that you use regular AAs. You aren't tied to a proprietary battery when they wear out. Of course if the case or electronics fail you are SOL. K already got a good year out of hers so I'd say we are even. Any more use we get out of them will be pure gravy.

I have about 3 years on the boots at SLC, and probably close to 5 years on the one at WB with the Basic battery holder set-up and no problem. I suspect the worst thing you could do is keep the batteries in and let them corrode, otherwise not much to go wrong.

I got the hotronic e4 last year.   I wanted the longer battery life, even if I didn't necessarily need it.  My main reason for wanting it, is that I had some numbness in my right foot, around my big toe/arch from back surgery that I had in March of 2011.   I wanted my feet to be warm enough, even if I couldn't necessarily feel it.   Also, for comfort.. ok..mainly for comfort.

 

I found that there were times that it really did help.    I can't say that my feet ever felt extremely warm or hot, except during the spring time.  Although they never got cold enough that I wanted to quit early from being cold.  so that is a good thing.  The batteries on mine never died before the end of the day, except for one day where I forgot to charge them.

+1 on the Boot Gloves!

It's the best 20 bucks I ever spent toward keeping my feet warm.  

I find they're more effective than my Hotronic 3 boot heaters.  For me, the Hotronics were just marginally O-K, and I was a little bit disappointed with them.  They're better than nothing, though. 

I know fit is important. I have Intuition liners on three pair of boots but that will not solve my wife's problem. It is not a heat conservation problem - it is a heat generation problem. For my wife and kids they thought their boots fit but their feet got cold. Perfect can be the enemy of Good. Find a ski shop that will install some heaters that they will stand behind and get them installed there. It is the best money I have ever spent on ski gear - and I've spent a lot of $$$ on ski gear.

There are a few threads here on how to keep your feet warm.  All start with having boots that fit properly.  I've posted a few times my warm feet process and here it is again.

 

I have skied when it was 31 below.  Froze my buns off but my feet stayed warm.  My process (post having properly fitting boots and Intuition liners) starts at my house.

 

I usually pack my stuff the night before.  When I'm getting ready to leave in the AM, I put a hand warmer in the toe box of each boot (all the way to the front), put a sock in next and then a bottle of water in the cuff.  Lightly buckle the boot to help hold the heat in.  Sometimes I'll shove my mittens in the cuff instead of water bottles. If I'm going to have any sort of long walk outside to get to the lodge, I make sure to use the Transpack; any bag that lets you put your boots in it will be fine.  By time I put my boots on at the mountain, the toe box and socks are toasty warm.  I unbuckle and remove the water bottle, put the warm sock on and get my foot in there after removing the hand warmer.  The hand warmer goes in my mittens so they can start warming up.  I leave the boots unbuckled until I have the other boot on too.  If I'm going out right away, after I've been in my boots for a bit, I'll buckle them per SIJ's process, and then comes the boot gloves (assuming it's a cold day).  If I'm not going out right away, I either stay out of the boots all together, or put them on and leave them unbuckled until it's time to go.

 

The hand warmer in the toe box is sort of the inexpensive way to have a boot heater bag.  I buy the hand warmers at a discount store in bulk so they are pretty cheap < 45 cents a pack.

 

I'll sometimes put my boots on the floor of the passenger seat with the heat on.  When I'm not going out right away, or if I'm taking a break with my boots off (i.e. being the Timer for NASTAR) I'll leave my boots inside but in the sun.  The timing booth is all window facing south and gets warm so I take advantage of that.

 

I've found that keeping my feet warm isn't "a" thing.  It's several things and capitalizing on all opportunities as they are presented and/or needed.  It all helps a little and it all adds up.

 

If your feet get too hot, they'll sweat and that can turn things bad pretty quick.  Change your socks.  Sometime if I know I'll be working hard and my feet are going to sweat but I won't have time to change my socks for a while, I'll do what I can to get my feet so hot, that even though the sweat, they don't get cold.  This is pretty tricky and I wouldn't do it on a really cold day.

 

Nowadays most rest rooms have a hand dryer and I've used that a couple times to warm my boots until I started using the above process.  Might still do it if the liners get sweaty.

 

I'm anal about a few things.  Keeping my boots/feet warm is probably #1.  Especially when you're going to be in them for a long day that might include an hour or so of standing still on the snow.

 

Have fun, stay warm,

Ken

Agree with Ken that Starting with warm boots will be a good to keep things .

 

But instead of those homebrew options, I'd say just use the right tool for the job.

 

Buy and use a boot dryer overnight/morning while you sleep/eat breakfast.  

If you are driving in, use the car-plugin for the boot dryers.

 

http://www.maxxdry.com/

Although this is the name brand, are plenty of generic brands that are pretty much similar and go on sale.

 

Ken, I've always wondered - does "anal retentive" have a hyphen???

 

On a serious note, though, I like your hand-warmer idea and will definitely give it a try this season.

I've always just made sure my boots were warm and dry before leaving the house and then stuffed my gloves into them and buckled them up until I was ready to put them on.  I'll try tossing in the hand-warmers before the gloves now.

Thanks guys, this is all great information!

 

If I do end up opting for the Therm-ics, I'm wondering if I can get away with getting the cheaper Kids battery pack: http://www.amazon.com/Thermic-010100004-Therm-ic-Basic-Power/dp/B0054U6XG6/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1346323154&sr=8-2&keywords=therm-ic

 

I'm about 5'0 and 100 lbs, my boots are size 22. I like snofun3's point that AA batteries can be changed out intraday, especially if the company's gone out of business, there'd be less chance that I'd need a replacement for a Therm-ic-specific battery.

 

Think the kids size pack will do the trick for a miniature adult? :)

 

Yes it does.  Hand warmer is not

 

 

raytsend,

Don't disagree with you.  I just like having the ability to get more use out of the hand warmer.  I tend to take my mittens/gloves off a lot when working race so they can get cold quick so I'm going to use the hand warmers anyway.

The thing I don't like about that pack is that it doesn't have a switch on the outside like the old one did. The advantage of the 3 position switch is that it allows you to be able to tell, even using gloves over pants what level (I, II, III) you have the heater on by clicking back and forth.

 

Based on Jim's post, I'd stay away from Thermic.  

Unless you want to get them cheap and throw them out when they don't work anymore.