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.