suggestions for fixing shoe heels?

Steel_2

My husband is a postman and walks around three miles a day. Because of the high wear and tear on shoes, Royal Mail issue their staff with one pair of shoes, DMs, once a year.

Both his shoes currently have a massive hole in the heels and splits down the sides that means he's getting soaking wet feet when it rains. The tight gits at Royal Mail are refusing to allow anyone to order anything other than high visibility jackets or steel toecapped shoes (only for staff in the loading banks) until 31st Dec. Meanwhile the poor sod is coming home freezing cold with soaking wet feet.

Can anyone suggest a moneysaving way of repairing these shoes, bearing in mind it has to stand up to the amount of walking he does a day. And before anyone says it, no I don't have a wetsuit like Tom Good had in The Good Life that could be used to repair it

Oh and if anyone knows Alan Leighton's email address so I can stick a metaphorically shoe up his backside (preferably one of my husband's soaking wet ones) for putting profits before staff health and comfort. :mad:

mel_anthe

I'm not sure about how to repair the shoes, but you can get waterproof socks from outdoor type shops (e.g. Blacks or Millets) - they might help keep his feet dry, at least - don't know if that's any help...

edit - the ones I have are sealskinz and they're brilliant

tawnyowls

Don't you have a shoe repair shop anywhere near you? Mister Minit or one of those? They should be able to sort that out for a couple of pounds. Otherwise, as it's only a few weeks, could he use one of his own pairs?

When he gets his new ones, invest in some metal shoe studs to hammer into the soles and heels to reduce the wear, and a tin of Nikwax to make the shoes waterproof and soft, to reduce the chance of splitting.

Nicki

Costs depend where you live, I think. We live in London, and the cost of just heeling shoes round where I live is about £14 a pair (just for the basic heels and more if you want something a bit fancy) - this is in both the chains and the local shops.

Steel_2

tawnyowls wrote:

Don't you have a shoe repair shop anywhere near you? Mister Minit or one of those? They should be able to sort that out for a couple of pounds. Otherwise, as it's only a few weeks, could he use one of his own pairs?

When he gets his new ones, invest in some metal shoe studs to hammer into the soles and heels to reduce the wear, and a tin of Nikwax to make the shoes waterproof and soft, to reduce the chance of splitting.

Good idea about the metal shoe studs - I'll definitely get some for future pairs of shoes. In the meantime I'm looking around for something I can maybe glue onto the bottom and have been going round the house feeling things like mousemats and heavy duty plastic bags!

The last time I had a heel repaired on a pair of shoes it cost nearly £10 and I can't spend that, not when Christmas is round the corner and I'm going great guns on overpaying my loans off. You know what it's like - you only have to find a reason not to do it once and suddenly there's reason's all over the place not to overpay again.

Personally, I object to him wearing his own shoes for the job, even for a couple of weeks, when the last pair he got from RM was over a year ago. The only other pairs of shoes he owns are, what I would call decent dress shoes so they'll be trashed. As his mother says "he wears heavy on his boots". As far as the splitting, it's the actual sole that's coming apart from the shoe rather than splitting across the main part of the shoe.

I found some 5 minute epoxy upstairs a few minutes ago in the hobby box and have decided to mix up a lethal, stinky concoction to paste onto the heels. See if that last a few days. I keep repeating to myself "don't put them down on the floor, don't put them down on the floor" otherwise he won't be going anywhere but the hallway tomorrow morning :laugh:

lil_me

Good luck with it, no instant sugestions, but I remember my dad was also only issued one pair of work shoes so used to get them soled and healed before he even wore them, seems made but saved the shoes.

CarlaKoala_2

Dont forget good ole woolworths - they always stock stick on soles for shoes, usually at the back of the shop. Easy to do yourself. Or even how about raiding a charity shop and seeing if there are any old shoes you could cannabilise there?
Carla

culpepper

My dad use to use evostick to mend his,so I think epoxy should to work.
Depends if its the leather come away because stitches have broken or glue has come away really.If its actually torn leather I cant think of a way to do it without it looking a bit odd.
My dad used to get 2 pairs and wear them on alternate days.He used to get them soled at the cobblers immediately after he bought them so once the 'new' sole was worn ,he still had the good sole underneath.

flufff

I just gave away 3 pairs of work type boots of my exs to charity because he was too fat and lazy to wear them.Have you looked in a charity shop?Long as they are comfy and clean would this not be a cheap option?
I would also write a letter of disgust to royal mail and tell taxman they arent providing work clothes as this will affect huibbies tax

Steel_2

Well..it seems to have been a success. The glue layer is still on there and he looks distinctly more cheerful today when he walked in and wriggled his dry feet at me.

I think I'll probably have to end up finding a substitute pair, either from ebay or from a charity shop, just to tide him over until he can get some new ones. That way I'll have a standby pair if this happens again next year.

He's just told me he was all for going into work with a carrier bag wrapped round his foot and secured with an elastic band, and he was deadly serious as well.

Has he no shame? He should know he's supposed to wear the bag on the inside of his shoe

Becles

My hubby is a postman and he hates Royal Mail shoes. Every pair he's had has cracked right across the sole within a couple of weeks of wearing them :mad:

He just buys cheap hiking style trainers from cheap sports shops like Sports World. He said he'd rather do that as comfort is too important when you're walking up to 8 miles a day carrying heavy bags.

Hubby is addicted to this site which is especially for postmen www.postmanchat.com Your husband might get some useful hints or just have a general rant about RM shoes on there.