This paper uses a Lagrangian formulation namely smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) technique for the prediction of conduction heat transfer in irregular geometries. Suitable schemes for the placement of particles inside irregular computational domain have been described. Organization and locations for virtual particles are also discussed for both Dirichlet and Neumann boundary conditions. Three different problems having typical geometries that pose numerical complications in grid based technique, are tackled by SPH efficiently. Conduction shape factor (CSF) for all the problems calculated through SPH shows a good agreement with published results or analytical solutions. Further, the temperature profiles computed by SPH depict close matches with those obtained through numerical software Fluent. The present exercise opens up the possibility of using SPH in varied geometries using different schemes of particle positioning and their judicial combinations. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.