What type of thermometer to use in a float tank – DSP 95

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.

The Thermoworks Reference Thermometer (Tommy 65,000)

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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.

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