Heating or cooling through conduction typically takes place at the building envelope (the outside walls, windows and doors) where warm or cold air outside causes the molecules of the envelope to increase vibration or decrease vibration which in turn causes a heat loss or gain inside of the building.Īn example of conduction affecting building temperature is the transfer of heat energy through the components of a window. If you were to grab insulation with your hand, it would likely feel warm or neutral, due to the fact that the vibration of the molecules in your hand is not able to cause an appreciable increase in the vibration of the molecules in the insulation.
For this reason, we would say that metal is a good conductor.īuilding insulation, on the other hand, is not a good conductor. The vibration of the molecules in your hand is causing an increase in the vibration speed of the molecules inside the metal, which causes the temperature of the metal to rise and that of your hand to drop. If you were to grasp a metal pole at room temperature with your hand, the pole feels cold due to the fact that heat energy is being transferred from your hand to the pole. When the heated object is put in contact with the cooler object, the molecules in the cooler object begin to vibrate faster, which means it is gaining heat energy and becoming warmer.
Given two objects, the particles within the hotter object move more rapidly than those in the cooler object. ConductionĬonduction is the transfer of heat through items that are in direct contact with one another. There are three ways that heat transfers from one location to another: conduction, convection and radiation. When heat is pulled from a room (cooling), at some point heat energy will return into the cooler space and will need to be removed again. When hot air enters a room, the items inside the room (furniture, walls, carpet, etc.) will increase in temperature as the hot air decreases in temperature until the point where the temperature of all items inside the room is equal. Heat energy will always follow the rules of thermodynamics: it will move to a cooler place than the location that it is currently located. Whether we are attempting to heat a building or cool a building, heat energy must be moved from one location to another.
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