Ouman HeatGuard for all properties using district heat

Kotikulma in Riihimäki is a company that manages the rental apartments of the city. During the last year, Ouman HeatGuard was installed to all properties of the company utilizing district heat.

”Investing on environmental matters has been a strategic choice by the city of Riihimäki already from the beginning of 1990s. The city has signed an energy efficiency contract with Ministry of Employment and the economy for 2008–2016. The city is boosting its energy consumption by avoiding unnecessary energy consumption, by improving the energy efficiency and monitoring the energy consumption in its own operations.”*

Because the energy efficiency is the interest of the whole city, it feels natural that Ouman woke up the CEO of Riihimäki’s tenant houses a real estate fair already a couple of years ago. Encouraged by the first tests, Ouman HeatGuard was installed to all properties of the company in district heating, a total of nearly 30 housing companies.

*Reference: The environmental report of the city of Riihimäki 2012.

Experiences boost up decision making

”In the first year we wanted to start carefully and Ouman HeatGuard was installed to a few properties” recalls the Kotikulma’s CEO Heikki Mattila about the start of the cooperation. Already during the first heating period the experiences were encouraging and ensured the decision makers of the city.

Calculations based on the first year’s experiences indicated that Ouman HeatGuards paid themselves back already in two years. Therefore, they decided to install the system also to other properties in the district heat network of the company. Now the total area of properties utilizing the Ouman HeatGuard at Riihimäki’s Kotikulma is approximately 30 000 square metres. There are different sizes of apartment houses and terrace house companies among the sites. Oldest of the sites are from the 19060s, the newest are 10 years old.

Saving is the sum of many items

In the energy saving framework of the city of Riihimäki, Kotikulma had taken other measures regarding the heating and ventilation equipment already before. Nearly all sites had also heating automation that is compatible with Ouman’s HeatGuard. ”We had to change radiator valves in some of the sites as well as their thermostats when making the installations” says Mattila.

When installing a Ouman HeatGuard, the line adjustments are controlled, the heating network is balanced when needed and the equipment is renewed when needed. The created total saving is often the sum of many factors. ”We had made proactive basic savings already a few years earlier. But I believe that the installation of Ouman’s HeatGuard was a good start for observing individual things”, says Mattila.

Savings to benefit residents

”When the results are handled in tenant meetings, the residents realize that energy saving is one way to limit the increase of rents”, Mattila says. The savings produced by Ouman HeatGuard at Riihimäki’s Kotikulma are directed to other repairs of the property: ”Our sites are already so old that other renovations need to be made. When savings are directed to the repair work, the benefit of the saving is returned to the residents.”