The growing requirement for energy thrift and hence the increasing emphasis on 'low-purchased-energy' designs are stimulating the need for more accurate insights into the thermal behaviours of buildings and their components. This better understanding is preferably achieved, rather than by using 'closed software' or teaching the relevant mathematics outside heat transfer lessons, but from embedding the pertinent tutoring while dealing with heat-transfer problems using an open-source code approach. Hence a finite-difference software program (FDiff3) has been composed to show the principles of numerical analysis as well as improve the undergraduates' perception of transient conduction. The pedagogic approach behind the development, its present capabilities and applications to sample test-cases are discussed. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.