A radiator dries a cleat faster than a fan. It also melts the glue holding the sole to the boot before the cleat ever plays a game. The fast way always costs something.
Why heat wrecks gear
Hockey skates are heat-molded to a kid’s foot at the shop, once, on purpose. A dryer, a car dashboard, or a space heater delivers that same heat again at home, and the boot remolds itself to nothing in particular. Bauer and CCM both warn against drying skates near direct heat for exactly that reason.
Ski boots with custom-molded liners have the identical problem. That’s why the boot dryers built for them barely get warm.
DryGuy’s electric dryers run at about 105 degrees, gentle enough to pull moisture out overnight without touching leather, rubber, or a heat-molded liner. Peet’s dryers skip the fan entirely and rely on convection heat instead: no moving parts, warm to the touch within fifteen to twenty minutes, and never hot enough to worry about.
What that covers besides ski boots
The same rule covers any gear a kid seals up wet and doesn’t open until practice. Cleats, skates, gloves, shin guards, shoulder pads, all of it. A low-heat or no-heat electric dryer works across the board.
The free version
Stuff wet cleats with newspaper and swap it out every few hours until it stops coming out damp. Turn gloves inside out so the liner meets the air. Pull the blade guards off a pair of skates and stand them tongue-down on a towel so the water runs out instead of sitting in the boot overnight.
A box fan aimed at the open gear bag cuts drying time more than most parents expect, and it costs nothing to run.
The one thing worth buying
A gear-heavy, wet-weather sport is where a low-heat electric dryer earns its keep. It pays for itself the first time it saves a pair of skates or cleats from a heat-warped sole.
Look for a model that lists an actual temperature, something in the 100 to 110 degree range. Skip anything that doesn’t say how hot it runs. If the box won’t answer that question, the company doesn’t want you asking it.