TIL that concrete curing sensors can misread temperature by 20 degrees in direct sun

Found out the hard way on a job site in Phoenix last summer when our pour was set to fail inspection because the sensor was sitting on rebar instead of in the shade. Has anyone else had false readings mess up their pour schedule?

2 comments

2 Comments

fiona98512d ago

Lol yep been there. Had a sensor meltdown on a bridge deck job in Florida where the thing was reading 85 but the actual concrete was pushing 105. The inspector flagged it and we had to argue for hours with the supplier to get them to come out and recalibrate. Cost us half a day and a ton of overtime. Sensors are great until they aren't, especially when they're cooking in the sun.

ellis.susan12d ago

Does the heat mess with the calibration on those things across the board, or is it just a bad batch? We had a similar issue last summer with some temp loggers on a school roof project and ended up just building little shade tents out of cardboard and foil, which worked okay after trial and error. @fiona985 your story sounds about right though, it always feels like you lose the whole day to something stupid when the gear goes wonky.