High demand for SL-decks in Finland
Since Lujabetoni launched the SL-deck to the Finnish market in October, the product has attracted vast interest from Finnish contractors with several projects underway. The first deliveries will start in February 2018 to sites in Espoo and Vantaa located at the outskirts of Helsinki.
For Lujabetoni, the project Hansakallio 3 will be the first SL-deck project in Finland. The project consists of two separate building blocks with a total number of 75 apartments and is built by the Finnish contractor Fira Oy. Describing the reasons for choosing SL-decks for the project, Topi Laine, managing Director of Fira Oy, says:
“Thanks to the large width of the SL-decks, we have much fewer slabs to install and much fewer joints to cast compared to a traditional precast solution. In practice, the SL-decks accelerate the installation and on-site processes. Most importantly, we create better and higher quality homes for our customers while improving the quality of construction”.
In the project, Fira uses their own prefabricated bathroom modules, which the company has been developing for a long time. As it was possible to make recesses for such bathroom modules in the SL-deck, the on-site floor solution could be made very simple and cost-efficient. Another important factor reducing the construction time is the fact that the floor heating system is integrated in the SL-decks.
“Better thermal insulation properties of the SL-decks made it possible to eliminate a separate floor heating system with insulation on top of the slabs. Thus, one of the cost-related processes will be completely eliminated without compromising the control of the internal temperature,” says Topi Laine.
Another SL-deck project has been developed by Avain Yhtiöt Oy, which is one of Finland’s largest housing developers. They build over 1000 new apartments each year and have now chosen SL-decks for their largest residential building site in Vantaa. This project consists of three separate apartment blocks with a total of 330 apartments. For the project, Lujabetoni will also deliver all other precast elements.
Business Area Manager Kari Mäenpää from Avain Yhtiöt Oy sees SL-deck as a very promising product for apartment sector and says:
“Luja-Superlaatta (Finnish SL-deck trademark) is a very interesting product for us, as its ease and cost-efficiency make the whole building process better for us as a developer. As a client, we are always interested in such innovative technology solutions.”
