Btu ????

this must be a old question but how do you measure btu's and is a higher btu better than a lower one or those that even matter ???

lamans terms

British Thermal Unit...... a cigarette gives off less btu's then a volcano, the mesurement is based on one pound of water.. so in order to take one pound of water and increase the temperature by one degree F, will be in btu increments

FWIW...

You can convert BTU here: www.convert-me.com :maybe it'll make more sense to ya...

so 2856 BTU per hour would be better than 2856 BTU per hour

Degrees F per pound of water... hot damn, what a crappy unit!

S.I units all the way baby!

But, it will take more to heat up a pound of water that is 34F than one that is 150F, because there would be more molecules. So, I can't see how that measurement works for crap.

It seems to me that it may be helpful to the rest of the forum posters if the opening poster revealed why he needs to know.

What is this in relation to?

More BTU, just like more Watts, can be better or worse depending on what it is that the comparison is being applied to.

More CPU BTU is bad in terms of trying to keep it cool. More air-conditioner BTU is good in terms of trying to keep a room cool on a hot summer's day.

What are we talking about here?

to sandman: a pound of water is a pound of water is a pound of water. while its true that the density of water at 34 degrees is greater than that of 150 degree water, the number of molecules in the water would be the same. the only thing that changes with heating is volume. also, another point that can be brought up, is that in an open system water evaporates, meaning that it takes less energy to heat up the quantity of water left. but thats a whole other concept.

also, would btu's be converted to joules or calories when converting to SI? im guessing joules, but calories would be more useful in similar applications.