Case Kotkan Asunnot

Monday, February 5, 2018

The housing company Kotkan Asunnot provides residents of Kotka, Finland, and those moving to the city with high-quality, safe and reasonably priced rental apartments. Kotkan Asunnot manages 2,700 rental apartments on 135 properties. The company’s capital stock is owned by the City of Kotka.

Leanheat is the easiest system to use

Kotkan Asunnot was among the first companies to begin implementing the Leanheat solution in 2015. Today, the technology is already used in the majority of the company’s total apartment stock.

Kotkan Asunnot has tried out different solutions for thermal management at its rental apartments. Based on a comparison that lasted over three years, the Leanheat system proved to be the best system in Kotka.

Martti Ahola

Leanheat is the easiest and most useful system in daily use.

This is a simple system that is easy to use. By opening the graphic image, I can immediately see each property’s situation. With other systems, you need to look for the information.

Martti Ahola, Technical Building Manager, Kotkan Asunnot

In addition to more than 10 per cent in energy savings, the ease of balancing the heating has generated significant cost savings for Kotkan Asunnot. Traditionally, fixing an imbalance in the radiator network has been a rather labourious project. First, an engineer planned the balancing. Then a tender process had to be conducted for the project. Finally, the contractor replaced all the balancing and radiator valves and adjusted the water flows to correspond to the plans.

With the Leanheat system, there is no need to balance an entire property. Instead, we’ve been able to go with lighter, apartment-specific repairs.

Seeing the problems of all the apartments on one screen allows us to fix the situation on a case-by-case basis in an individual apartment or even fix a single radiator – even if the tenant hasn’t complained about the situation. This has also improved living comfort. The correct temperature is also beneficial to the tenants’ health.

Martti Ahola

The cost savings have been significant. Traditional balancing of heating in a medium-sized property often costs 10,000–20,000 euros. If it is possible to fix the one radiator that caused the problem, the cost only amounts to a couple hundred euros.

In addition to cost savings, this is also a question of quality and achieving goals. The traditional labour-intensive method of balancing heating is rarely carried out successfully enough to balance the property’s heating optimally. In Kotka, the outcome has been a guaranteed success with Leanheat.

Leanheat® — For true energy optimization. From people to production.

Buildings account for a staggering 40 percent of the world’s energy consumption. And in Europe alone, almost a third of residential heating comes from fossil fuels.
Leanheat empowers district energy networks to optimize the operational efficiency of buildings and increase the comfort of end-users through end-to-end software solutions.