There are many different applications which require the use of a thermometer, from basic everyday tasks such as cooking or testing family members for a fever, to checking fridge/freezer/oven temperature, measuring water temperature to help prevent outbreaks of Legionnaires’ disease, reaching critical temperatures in a manufacturing process, maintaining temperatures during distribution of food products, tyre production, oil production, laboratory testing, facilities/building management and more. The risks of not having a thermometer for these applications vary from a burnt dinner to patients contracting a life-threatening disease.

Simply put, the thermometer is the ‘box’, where you will see a screen that displays measurements, and the probe is the thing connected to it. So the probe (or sensor), senses the temperature and sends a signal to the thermometer, which translates it into a figure (usually °C or °F) and displays it. Probes can come in many different varieties which are designed to suit a specific application (such as needle probes, flat food probes, air probes etc). Thermometers, too, can have many different applications in addition to displaying a temperature reading. Some thermometers have a hold function, or can calibrate other thermometers, scan barcodes or wirelessly send temperature readings to other electronic equipment such as PCs or PDAs.

Different Environmental Health Officers and HACCP Officers will require different levels of calibration. You should always follow the advice of your EHO on calibration. At TME, we are happy for the calibration of thermometers to be tested weekly, which you can do yourself. Most EHOs advise a yearly re-calibration of your thermometer and/or probe, which would consist of sending your thermometer away to be calibrated.

Infrared thermometers are thermometers that measure infrared light radiating from the surface of an object. Infrared signals can be correlated to specific temperatures, which is how they can obtain a temperature reading without direct contact to the object being read. Infrared thermometers can be useful when it is not possible to obtain direct contact with the object being measured, due to it being in a controlled atmosphere, moving very fast, or when contact would contaminate the object. It is important to remember that infrared thermometers are not able to provide the accuracy that is often required, especially for food or water temperature testing. This is because an infrared thermometer measures the surface temperature only, and because there is no contact with the object measured, it will often not even measure the surface temperature of an object, but instead, measure the temperature of the air in front of the object. The fundamental accuracy typically achievable in laboratory conditions is ±2°C, in real life situations however this is rarely achieved. As a rule of thumb the colder the temperature the less accurate an infra red measurement is.

If you have purchased a large number of TME thermometers/probes, and are likely to have a high turnover of breakages, we offer a swap service which charges a set monthly rate in return for an unlimited number of swaps. We can offer this on a next day basis. If you are interested in the swap system, please phone or email TME for advice on how best to set it up.

TME probes do not come with a warranty, however, if there is a fault in our manufacturing process we will of course replace for free.

Yes. We can produce a calibration certificate for a probe to either the four standard points (for food applications: -20, 0, +20 & 80 C, for Legionella applications: 0, 20, 55 & 100 C) or to four points of your choosing. Please note: for probes being returned to us for calibration, whilst it is possible to produce a certificate for a probe, we will not be able to adjust any errors found during the test.

Yes. This would be for our standard UKAS traceable certificate. Prices start at £35.00. Please email sales@tmethermometers.com with the four temperature points required.