The dual reciprocity boundary element method (DRBEM) and the precise time-domain expanding algorithm are combined for solving transient heat conduction problems with heat sources. Firstly, the recursive formulation of the governing equation is derived by expanding time-dependent physical quantities at any discrete time interval. Then, the recursive equation is solved by the DRBEM, while a self-adaptive check scheme is used for estimating recursive times in a time step. Finally, the single and multi-connected domain problems are analyzed respectively with different kinds of boundary conditions. The results show that the proposed method can obtain very stable and accurate results with different time steps. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.