Woodburning Boiler – Powered by old whisky casks

I’ve seen many a pellet boiler and wood burner thread on here. Any ideas how I’d go about burning oak wood from spent whisky casks?

* What type of boiler.
* Any ideas of suppliers.

This would be used to feed heat into a thermal store (probably though open to suggestions) for use in an office of 25 people.

Thank you!

there are approx 3500kWh per ton of wood at 30% moisture content – not sure if the whisky would add to the calorific value or not, but how much wood do you have available, and what is the annual heat load?

what heats the office at the moment and what were the last years (or three) bills?

I expect most spirit will have evaporated but you’ll still have some lipids and amino acids kicking about. Insignificant I’d expect.

Currently have a lot of spare casks but not sure of specifics in the future (how much we have now is not the point – it’s how much will we have consistently in the future).

No idea of heat load nor bills as this will be a new build office.

At this stage I’m just checking out the options: technologies and suppliers.

Speyside Cooperage sell off these offcuts – I have to imagine at least some of that gets fed into a boiler. Possibly also worth asking some of the local joiner / plumber firms if it’s something they’ve had to deal with..

I believe after being used to matue whisky up tp 5 times,most whisky casks are used to smoke salmon with a fair few being used for furniture. So not likely to be cheap unles you can source off cuts from a cooperage.

We own two cooperages at present so no trouble there 😉

I’m looking at cask depletions to understand future wood availability.

Can anyone point me in the direction of wood boiler specialists?

Have a chat with Danny Frost. He is up to date with Wood Fired Boilers and well qualified to talk stuff through with you. Mention that you have spoken to Rick Harrison, I’m sure he can help with info you need.

He is manager at the Cumbria FabLab. Copied from their website.

For further details and to find out how you can get involved, or even volunteer to assist users, visit http://www.becfablab.org, contact info@becfablab.org or telephone Danny Frost, BEC Fab Lab Manager, on 01900 825080.

All sounds way too complicated, work out how many kw you need, buy appropriately sized wood burner, fit it to regs, feed it with said oak, enjoy the warmth.
My grandfather made a barrel big enough to drive a car through.