Hotel Torni

The Finnish Recair air handling units are taking care of Hotel Torni’s ventilation

The Art-Deco-inspired Hotel Torni in Helsinki’s city centre is under renovation. The work is scheduled to be completed in late 2021.

When first opened in 1931, Hotel Torni was the city’s tallest building and the first in Finland to fully use electricity. The hotel has an eventful history as the host of international diplomacy, dignitaries, and even royals. The unique excitement of the hotel’s history comes in part from its popularity as a centre of international intelligence in the 1930s, as well as a base for the Russian Supervisory Commission in the 1940s.

ETS NORD was involved in the modernization of the legendary hotel, and in addition to ventilation ducts and regulating and shut-off dampers, it supplied the site with Finnish Key Flag Recair air handling units. Plenty of small units each able to handle a few hundred litres of air were needed for the ventilation of the hotel. The air handling units were implemented in collaboration with the designers, the contractor, and the ETS NORD team, and each unit part was designed in detail to make the units fit in the allotted space, while maintaining the possibility to maintain and inspect the units. It was only possible to haul the Recair air handling units into the engine rooms, designed for technology from the early 1930s, through the roof of the hotel, and even then, the units needed to be disassembled into very small sections.

Jarmo Mikonsaari, the project manager at Bravida, who worked as an HVAC contractor for the project, has already collaborated a lot with ETS NORD in the past and is satisfied with the customer relationship.

”The delivery of the units came well in advance and was put into temporary storage to wait for installation. ETS NORD’s deliveries have worked well for me, and any complaints have always been handled very well. As a whole, I am satisfied with ETS NORD’s operations,” Mikonsaari summarizes.

Pictures: Laura Lehtonen