This invention relates to drying apparatus and, more particularly, to an apparatus for drying footwear in a drying device.
Various types of drying devices are known in the art. Domestic automatic clothes dryers, for example, are drying devices routinely used in households for drying wet or washed laundry, etc. Such automatic clothes dryers typically include a rotating drum operatively connected to a source of heat. During a typical drying process, heat is introduced into the drum while the drum rotates, and the heat is delivered to the contents of the drum, which usually occurs by a stream, or airflow, generated by an air moving device such as a fan or a blower. Thus, items placed in the drum, such as common household laundry, are dried by the heat and the air stream.
Often times, it is desirable to dry household items other than laundry in a drying device. Footwear, such as shoes, for example, may sometimes be washed in a washing machine or by hand, and it may be desirable to dry the washed footwear faster than just letting it sit and air-dry. Shoes loosely placed in the drum of a drying device, however, generate undesirable noise when they collide against the walls of the drum when the drum rotates. Shoes may also get damaged during such process. Devices that hold shoes in place relative to the walls of the drum to help eliminate such noise, however, do not dry the shoes as evenly and thoroughly as is typically desirable. This is usually because the heat, such as the heat in the air stream in the drum, is delivered mostly to the exterior of the shoes. A comparatively minor amount of the heat, if any, is delivered to the interior of the shoes such as the toe area inside the shoes.
To overcome such problems, shoes are usually removed from the drying device before their interior is fully dry. This is usually not desirable because the shoes are not completely dry when removed from the drying device, whereby they may not be dry enough to wear. In other instances, shoes are dried further until their interior is also dry, but this process wastes energy and can damage the shoes by continuing to apply heat to the already dry exterior of the shoes. Therefore, it is desirable to have footwear drying apparatus that facilitates more even drying of the exterior and the interior of footwear in a drying device.
Accordingly, the present invention is directed to overcoming one or more of the problems as set forth above.
In one aspect of the invention, a footwear drying apparatus is disclosed for use in a drying device. The footwear drying apparatus is preferably adjustable so that it may be accommodated in drums of most drying devices and, further, accommodate shoes of different sizes. A pair of shoes can be held relative to the footwear drying apparatus and the drum of the drying device during the drying process. The footwear drying apparatus facilitates convection air to flow through its body to the interior of the footwear, whereby the footwear is dried more evenly on its exterior and its interior.