Something in the world of floating have you stumped?
Show Highlights
Being able to measure the temperature of your float tank solution is incredibly important, especially since a small variable can make such a huge difference in the variability of the experience. But what kind of thermometer is going to be the most accurate that can still stand up to the demanding environment of a float center? Graham and Ashkahn weigh in.
Show Resources
The Thermoworks Reference Thermometer (Tommy 65,000)
Listen to Just the Audio
Transcription of this episode… (in case you prefer reading)
Graham: Today’s question is, “what type of thermometer do you use?”
Ashkahn: Thermometer.
Graham: Yup. To make the perfect turkey. No, no I assume they mean in your float tank. They didn’t specify.
Ashkahn: Well, we use a handheld thermometer. There’s thermometers in the float tanks, each one it comes with a little thing to tell you the temperature.
Graham: Yeah.
Ashkahn: But, we like having another external handheld thermometer that we use. Because one, we have a variety of models of float tank in our center. So it’s nice for us to have one device we can use from tank to tank, to tank to get a more consistent read out across all of them.
Graham: Yup. It ends up just being nice to also be able to have those around and double check things and just compare. We actually use ones that end up being really precise in their measurements too. So, reference thermometers are actually what they’re called.
We get one that goes down to +/- 0.08 degrees so under point one degrees of accuracy, which often next steps up there get to 0.8 degrees of accuracy is a really common one that you see. At that point it means when you measure you’re within 1.6 degrees of what you think you’re measuring. It’s not a good range, you know.
Ashkahn: What, do you remember? The company’s called ThermoWorks. Do you remember what the actual model of the one we use is?
Graham: Here, I can look it up. Keep … Stall, stall!
Ashkahn: All right. The other nice thing about thermometers is that, if you don’t know if it’s cold or hot, that’s how you figure it out. You use a thermometer. And …
I should say a few things about these thermometers because while we’re tell you the model of the one that we have. It certainly is not perfect. It helps us to be accurate. It breaks on us all the time. It is meant to be kind of water resistant, but it doesn’t seem to be actually able to hold up to the onslaught of water and salt that even when we try to be careful somehow makes its way up the probe into the electronics and eventually they die on us. So, we have two of these one hand at any given point in time because we’re used to one breaking down to the point where we need to send it in for repairs. We’re constantly sending one of these in for repairs.
Graham: Here’s a pro tip too. I recommend naming all of your fragile objects in your shop because it makes people care about them more. This is our theory at least.
Ashkahn: Yeah, we tried naming them. We even tried putting googly eyes on them. Really getting people to have a sentimental attachment to the thermometers so that they wouldn’t be as willing to treat them in a way that would break them, but it still didn’t … If anything it’s made us realize we kill a lot of thermometers. We’ve gone from Tommy to Tuppins to …
Graham: Back to Tommy again.
Ashkahn: Back to Tommy.
Graham: That’s where we are again.
I looked it up. I nailed it before. It’s just their reference thermometer.
Ashkahn: That’s it. It’s just called the ThermoWorks reference thermometer.
Graham: Their handheld reference thermometer, yup.
Ashkahn: Is there like a number? 6500.
Graham: Let’s see. I don’t see a number.
Ashkahn: Okay, well it should be called the 6500. It should have a cool name like that.
Graham: I’ll bring that up with … Here the SKU number’s THS222-555.
Ashkahn: Nice. That sounds way more slick.
Graham: Yeah, it just rolls off the tongue, you know. That’s what we use. We use the THS222-555.
Ashkahn: How much is it?
Graham: Three hundred bucks.
Ashkahn: Three hundred bucks.
Graham: But, the nice thing is when it breaks down, we don’t have to pay that for an entirely new thermometer. We actually just send it back to the company for repairs. Oftentimes it’s the probe that needs to be replaced or the battery pack got corroded. They can just replace those elements.
Ashkahn: For a small fee.
Graham: Like under a hundred bucks, I think.
Ashkahn: But, yeah it still adds up as an expense. It’s a recurring expense for us is keeping working thermometers.
Graham: Yeah. I mean it’s a good lesson I guess, beyond just thermometers too; is not much that’s electronic is long for this world in a float tank center.
Ashkahn: I guess the other thing to mention with thermometers is even if you have the most accurate thermometer in the world you still have to deal with the fact that the water in the float tank might not be uniform. You might be measuring in a spot that is slightly warmer than another spot and it’s not mixed up. Maybe the pump just was running and it heated the water up a little bit. It’s not necessarily the only thing to consider with temperature. There’s just kind of a lot of uncontrollable variables or variables that throw the numbers off a little bit even if you have an incredibly accurate thermometer.
Graham: Yeah, unless you get five of them and make sort of a little grid of probes that you put down across the water at different depths and then write a computer program to kind of take the averages.
Ashkahn: I should say too we have those laser gun thermometers, you know? You know, what I’m talking about?
Graham: Oh, I know what you’re talking about. The old laser therms.
Ashkahn: The laser guns. Those don’t seem to work very well.
Graham: Yeah, at all really.
Ashkahn: We got one and we tested it. They don’t really work at all.
Graham: We actually confirmed that with the ThermoWorks thermometer company as well. You know, they were pretty much saying getting readings off of the water with the refraction of the salt and just everything going on, you’re not going to be able to measure it and they’re not even that accurate.
Ashkahn: No, even for the things they’re meant to be used for, they’re not really like the most accurate of things.
Graham: They measuring ranges of hundreds of degrees for really … When you’re HVAC system heats up and different things like that, not 0.1 degrees.
Ashkahn: So, it’s tempting, once we started breaking these it’s like something that can take a temperature from a distance sounds really great. But, did not seem to actually be the solution.
Graham: Yup. And, definitely if you are choosing out your own thermometer, obviously there’s many companies that offer these, but definitely take a look at that precision amount. In my mind, again anything that’s above 0.1 degrees is a little too high.
All right.
Ashkahn: Done.
Graham: Sha-bam. Thanks for the question and if you have your own, send them to floattanksolutions.com/podcast.
Recent Podcast Episodes
Tank Topics – All About Research
The holidays are a busy time for float centers and it often means lots of new customers asking questions. This means it can be a really great time to brush up on the facts about floating. Fortunately we’ve formed a folio of fantastic studies for you to fancy. Feliz Navidad!
Tank Topics – Handling Difficult Customers
In every service business, there’s a running joke that someone likes that’s usually somehting along the lines of “this job would be great if it weren’t for all the customers!” (*cue laugh track and uproarious applause*), well, the boys have not shied away from talking about the difficult sides of running a shop like ours. We’ve got episodes about handling negative Yelp reviews, customers too intoxicated to float, and even what to do when it’s time to 86 a problematic client.
The 2019 Float Conference Recap – OSP 09
You can tell this episode was recorded a little while ago, really close to after we all got back from the Conference. The boys are a little tired today, but they still have lots to talk about.
Grashkahmn share their initial reactions to the Conference now that it’s being run by the industry as a non-profit. This is a nice episode especially if you’re looking for some insights on their behind-the-scenes perspective on this big industry event and how it has changed this year.
Tank Topics – Health Departments
Something in the world of floating have you stumped? Show Highlights Hooo doggie! This is a big one! This Tank Topic is filled with useful information about what you should know before talking to health...
The Russian Float Conference – OSP 08
Graham and Ashkahn are back to give their recap on the Float Conference. No, not THAT Float Conference, the Russian Float Conference.
The guys got to go speak at the float event on the other side of the world and are reporting back on what that was like, how their industry is shaping up, and some of the lessons we can learn about their industry over there.
Additionally, Graham and Ashkahn lied to you. The show notes will not have a puppet show in them.
Latest Blog Posts
How to Safely Reopen your Float Center
As our communities begin reopening amidst this pandemic, float centers are straddling a line between wanting to run floats and making sure they’re keeping their customers and staff safe. The collective social fatigue and stress are palpable, and it’s apparent to many...
Float On’s Open Sourced Resources for Launching a Buy One Give One Sale
In the first episode of Improving Your Float Center from Home: the Bathrobe Chronicles, Ashkahn and Graham covered the special deal that they're running at Float On during their closure. Watch the full episode below:For the deal, they're offering 25% off floats, and...
Checklist for Temporarily Closing Your Float Center
These are challenging times for all of us, and many float centers (ourselves included) have decided to temporarily shut down to help stop the spread of coronavirus. Our team got together yesterday to figure out what we need to do to put our shop into hibernation mode,...
Can Epsom Salt Kill Coronavirus?
NOTE: This article was originally published March 13th, 2020, last updated July 14th, 2020. While we want to make sure this advice is current, it is not definitive. We want to recognize the limitations of advice during a pandemic where information is updated by...
