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
How to reduce salt dust from ending up everywhere – DSP 105
Today brings a curious question about a float center owner who’s trying to deal with salt dust everywhere, including in their tool room. While salt does get everywhere, it can’t evaporate like water can and doesn’t travel through the air very well.
Graham and Ashkahn try their best to answer it and try to figure out what might be causing it, having not experienced something like that themselves at Float On. If any float centers out there have experienced this phenomenon and have any insights, send it our way!
Personal background, training, education for float center owners – DSP 104
Every new float center owner brings something different to the table. A former accountant is going to have a different skill set than someone who spent the last 15 years in construction. Now, it’s likely that they’ll both find ways to succeed in very different ways, but it’s possibly that one could be better suited to running a float center than they other.
Graham and Ashkahn get asked about their personal backgrounds that led to them starting Float On and, by extension, what the ideal background might be for running a float center.
While they have very non-traditional backgrounds themselves, they both have worked diligently through Float On’s lifetime to make sure that they learn the skills necessary to get the job done.
Causes of feeling nauseated in a float tank – DSP 103
Sometimes, very rarely, customers will get out of a float saying they felt really nauseous. Some even feel so bad that they vomit afterwards. What causes this and what can float center owners do about it? Well, sometimes it’s motion sickness, sometimes it’s the temperature in the tank, and sometimes it’s just random happenstance.
Regardless of why it occurs, how you handle it is important. Graham and Ashkahn have some good advice for post-bad float aftercare that’s worth listening to.
Disinfecting inside float tank walls – DSP 102
How do you clean the inside of the float tank? Obviously, you wanna be careful given that you’re working so closely with your float solution. What precautions do you need to take? What sort of products do you use?
Graham and Ashkahn share their stories of cleaning tanks, finding proper cleaners, and how to use them without affecting your water.
Talking About Dr. Justin Feinstein’s Anxiety Study – DSP 101
Recently, Justin Feinstein and his team at LIBR have published their first landmark study on the effects of floatation-REST on patients with extreme anxiety. After years of hearing about Justin’s research, it’s exciting for the whole industry to finally get to see some tangible results.
But what can we say about these effects? What can’t we say? Graham and Ashkahn bring in Justin Feinstein himself to answer these deceptively unsimple questions and talk in depth about this research and what it means for the industry
Latest Blog Posts
No Results Found
The page you requested could not be found. Try refining your search, or use the navigation above to locate the post.
