The house delivered by Syöte-Huvilat Oy, which manufactures log buildings from Saarijärvi, has won the main prize in the national log house competition of Japan’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport. The winning house was delivered from northern central Finland to Nagano prefecture in Japan in 2019.
It took several months to design the log giant with a total area of approximately 650 square meters. After its completion, it has operated as a mental health clinic.
– The house was really demanding to design. The outer walls are two-layer pine logs. The planning had to be done carefully so that assembly on the other side of the planet was as easy as possible. We got a lot of praise for the preparation from the really experienced team of builders, even though we were a little afraid of the roofs here, says Mikko Puurunen, CEO of Syöte-Huvilat.
The house is the largest single order the company has ever delivered. When the logs were finished, their total length was no less than 9,400 meters.
- They were packed in seven sea containers for the time of chartering. And it only had a frame, a roof and other individual additions were made in Japan, Puurunen explains. The same customer has been ordering buildings from Syöte-Huvilat in Japan for decades. At its best, up to 70–80 percent of the entire annual production went to the land of the rising sun.
– At first, he received happy emails several times a week. Apparently, the customer entered us into that competition as well. He was about to order an even bigger building from us, but then the corona happened. The project is still frozen, let’s see what happens, Puurunen says. The company’s export pipeline initially opened to Germany in 1993. Immediately after, the Japanese market opened, followed by others. Exports to the Far East have declined over the years, but European countries have filled the gap left by it.
– 20 houses were sold to Germany last year. 190 different buildings have already been delivered to one local customer. Our business is pretty much based on serving existing customers and their acquaintances, where we have been very lucky. A good bell rings far away, a bad one even further. Other strong markets are Greece, Sweden, Norway and occasionally almost all other European countries.
In the Finnish market, Syöte-Huvilat has hardly advertised, and has not made a sound.
- We have been operating in Saarijärvi for 36 years, and the most important region in Finland has been Central Finland. Of course, houses are sold elsewhere on the recommendations of satisfied customers. Enough work.
The company’s turnover has been around 2.5 million euros for years. Last year was a record with more than three million. According to CEO Puurunen, there are no real growth goals, but the owners and employees are satisfied with the current situation.
– We are a family business with about 15 employees. At the moment, production is quite painless. If there is natural growth, we will happily do it, but that is not the goal. With big growth, many things would quickly become small for us, and we would have to rethink things. Right now, we have a decent amount of personality.