Servus CT Safety Review

Despite the low price, we believe your money will be better spent on any other boots in our review unless you're sure you only need an emergency-use pair of waterproof boots.

Performance Comparison

These boots will keep out the water but fared poorly overall against the competition.

Photo: Richard Forbes

Weather Protection

The Servus CT boots are waterproof with a shaft height of 15", though this would be higher if the designers hadn't chosen to shorten it at the back of the leg. Upon some research, we found that the "CT" stands for "Comfort Technology" and refers to this "unique scalloped top-line design." We haven't seen this design in other boots, and while we assume it's intended to change how the boot contacts the back of the calf (or to make it easier to put on), we don't think it's a useful design feature. Due to this strange cut, these boots don't measure up to the highest tier of boots in our test, so if you need an extremely waterproof pair of boots, get something with a higher shaft.

We're not sure why the back of these boots gets lower, but it made this test stressful...

Photo: Richard Forbes

Comfort

The Servus boots are the most uncomfortable boots of the test group, and we don't recommend wearing them for longer than an hour, tops. We found the "Comfort Technology" didn't help the inflexible shafts, stiff sole, and the undeniable fact that the steel-toe protrudes into the toe-box.

Their mysteriously heavy weight doesn't do them any favors either (they are the heaviest boot in our review, weighing in at 6.13 lbs), which must be due to the thicker rubber, as well as the steel toe

The inflexible rubber bit into the front of our ankles on steep surfaces.

Photo: Richard Forbes

All these complaints, combined with a loose fit and flimsy insole, made us not want to wear these boots once we'd finished the testing period. Not to put too fine a point on it, but there are rain boots that are fun and easy to wear, and then there are the Servus CT boots. We can confidently state that any other boot in this test would be more comfortable than these, no matter what you're using them for.

The insole isn't much to get excited about, but if you need a cheap boot, you can improve the comfort of this model a bit by switching it out for a third-party insole.

Photo: Richard Forbes

Traction

The Servus CT has moderately good traction, scoring in the middle of the pack in this metric. Their stiffer rubber doesn't grip as aggressively as some of the higher scoring boots, but we weren't slipping around too much either. We find that they're especially slippery on wet wood, which is a difficult material for any boot to grab onto, but which these do particularly poorly on.

This wood might have well have been a banana peel for how much we were slipping around, but, to be fair, no boots handle this kind of surface well.

Photo: Richard Forbes

Warmth

Without insulation, these boots became uncomfortable quickly in our cold-water immersion test, and we could feel the chill through the boots almost immediately (our notes say after "39 seconds"). The cheap rubber conducts cold faster than the (even slightly) more expensive boots.

This was a chilly morning to be wading through a mountain stream!

Photo: Richard Forbes

Style

Our style consultants do not like the chunky/shiny look of these boots, and they did poorly in our style test. They're not the unanimously ugliest boots in our test, but they're a ways away from the stylish options.

They are easy to get on but so clunky and heavy!

Photo: Richard Forbes

Fit

Our main tester has size 12 feet and wears a size 13 in boots. In a size 13, the Servus boot was very loose. There's probably around 3/4" of an inch of forward and backroom (maybe even a little more). They're especially loose in the heel, and our feet tended to rattle around in the boots as we walked. However, if we went down to a smaller size, our toes would be even further inside the steel toe, and we would have felt how the steel toe protrudes into the toe box even more. There's a bit of room width-wise for D width feet, but if you normally take wide sizes, you will probably need to size up. These boots are high volume and are still loose even with insoles.

These would be a great cheap pair of boots with an umbrella to keep in the back of the car in case of bad weather.

Photo: Richard Forbes

Value

If we're talking about value in purely economic terms, these boots are probably worth the few dollars they cost in material, labor, and shipping. If we're talking about whether you're going to get your money's worth out of them, consider all the points discussed in this article. And if you're the type of person who still wants them, after all the nitpicking we've done, they'll be fine boots — they just won't be too comfortable.

Conclusion