Skip to content

British thermal unit

BTU standard definition

The International Table (IT) British thermal unit (BTU) equals exactly 1055.05585262 joules. This differs from the thermochemical BTU (1054.35 J); we use the IT definition consistently throughout.

Definition

Dimension
Energy
Symbols
BTU
System
convention
Base factor
×1055.05585262
Exactness
standard definition

Fixed by a published standard or convention (toe, therm, IT cal/BTU).

Also known as

btubtusbritish thermal unitsbtu_it

Sources

Common conversions

for 1 BTU

Learn more