Log home product literature claims that log walls insulate as well as fiberglass because of the thermal mass. The issue of thermal mass and its effect on the energy performance of buildings is one of the most confusing issues facing designers, builders, and buyers of buildings today. This article tries to sort out these mysteries, providing enough background on the physics of heat transfer to understand the relationship between thermal storage and heat flow, and then explaining when this information is relevant and how it should be used in building design. A cast-iron skillet handle heats up because of conduction through the metal.
Convection is the transfer of heat by physically moving the molecules from one place to another.
A campfire can warm you even if there is wind between you and the fire, because radiation is not affected by air. With buildings, we refer to heat flow in a number of different ways. R-values are measured by testing laboratories, usually in something called a guarded hot box . So far, so good. Heat capacity is a measure of how much heat a material can hold.