The British thermal unit (symbol BTU or Btu) is a traditional unit of energy equal to about 1055 joules. It is approximately the amount of energy needed to heat 1 pound (0.454 kg) of water, which is exactly one tenth of a UK gallon or about 0.1198 US gallons, from 39°F to 40°F (3.8°C to 4.4°C). The unit is most often used in the power, steam generation, heating and air conditioning industries. In scientific contexts the BTU has largely been replaced by the SI unit of energy, the joule, though it may be used as a measure of agricultural energy production (BTU/kg). It is still used unofficially in metric English-speaking countries (such as Canada), and remains the standard unit of classification for air conditioning units manufactured and sold in many non-English-speaking metric countries.

In North America, the term "BTU" is used to describe the heat value (energy content) of fuels, and also to describe the power of heating and cooling systems, such as furnaces, stoves, barbecue grills, and air conditioners. When used as a unit of power, BTU per hour (BTU/h) is the correct unit, though this is often abbreviated to just "BTU".

The unit MBTU was defined as one thousand BTU, presumably from the Roman numeral system where "M" stands for one thousand (1,000). This is easily confused with the SI mega (M) prefix, which multiplies by a factor of one million (1,000,000). To avoid confusion many companies and engineers use MMBTU to represent one million BTU. Alternatively a therm is used representing 100,000 or 105 BTU, and a quad as 1015 BTU. Some companies also use BTUE6 in order to reduce confusion between thousands of BTU's vs. millions of BTU's.

1 btu can powerEdit

• 3/280,000,000 homes
• 1 home for 1/9,000,000 months
• 3/190,000 homes for a year
• 1/3,400,000 bedroom house for a year (1/3,400,000 bedroom house could save over 37/1,700,000 pounds of co2 a year, 37/23,358,000 gallons of oil, enough energy to power over 629/340,000,000,000 cars for a year, one car to travel 37/1,557,200 miles, 37/3,400,000 power strips, a 185/3,893 cubic meter lake from being polluted)
• 1 home for almost 1/1,700,000 months
• 60 watt light bulb for 13/2,725 hours

See AlsoEdit

• Kilowatt hour