Heat

Heat (abbreviated Q, also called heat change) is the transfer of thermal energy between two bodies which are at different temperatures. The SI unit for heat is the joule.

Heat dissipation

In cold climates, houses with their heating systems form dissipative systems. In spite of efforts to insulate such houses, to reduce heat losses to their exteriors, considerable heat is lost, or dissipated, from them which would make their interiors uncomfortably cool or cold. The house is an open system inasmuch as it is incapable of preventing heat from escaping. Furthermore, the interior of the house must be maintained out of thermal equilibrium with its exterior for the sake of its inhabitants.

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In such a house, a thermostat is a device capable of starting the heating system when the house's interior falls to a set temperature, and of stopping that same system when another set temperature has been achieved. Thus the thermostat controls the flow of energy into the house, that energy eventually being dissipated to the exterior.

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