[Python] Pandas TypeError: Could not convert to numeric

I am working on a project where I imported data from SQL into a pandas DataFrame. This seems to go swimmingly, but when I take the pandas.mean() it throws a TypeError saying that a concatenated list of the values cannot be converted to numeric (see below):

Example Dataframe:

ProductSKU OverallHeight
0 AAI2185 74.5
1 AAI2275 47
2 AAI2686 56.5
3 AASA1002 73.23


Function Call:

avgValue = df["OverallHeight"].dropna().mean()


Console Output:

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "C:\Program Files\Anaconda\lib\site-packages\pandas\core\generic.py", line 5310, in stat_func
numeric_only=numeric_only)
...
File "C:\Program Files\Anaconda\lib\site-packages\pandas\core\nanops.py", line 293, in nanmean
the_sum = _ensure_numeric(values.sum(axis, dtype=dtype_sum))
File "C:\Program Files\Anaconda\lib\site-packages\pandas\core\nanops.py", line 743, in _ensure_numeric
raise TypeError('Could not convert %s to numeric' % str(x))
TypeError: Could not convert 74.54756.573.23 to numeric


The strangest thing is that it works perfectly fine when I import the same data through a CSV. It only breaks when I load it through SQL, could there be something I did incorrectly there?

Continue reading...