25-Year-old Kuusamo Log Houses promotes climate action

Kuusamo Log Houses is a family business from Koillismaa, North-Western Finland, founded 25 years ago. This traditional house factory, focusing on delivering house and holiday home packages, stands firmly on its own feet, confident in facing the future despite the challenges in the industry. Kuusamo Log Houses has never been one to go after a quick buck; instead, the company has been slowly increasing its turnover all the way to the current 20 million Euro. Jouko Virranniemi, the chair of the board of directors and a partner of Kuusamo Log Houses, thinks the company is currently just the perfect size in terms of market situation.

– 25 years is quite an achievement for a family business with recognizable faces and the original name.  Kuusamo Log Houses is agile, swift and knows how to adapt to changing trends. We have enough capacity to cover demand at the moment, but of course there’s always room for improvement. Our house factory has several production lines; streamlining these further brings us more competitive edge as the European market recovers from current challenges.

Functioning finances bring security to customers

For these people in Kuusamo, exact housekeeping is, in part, a matter of character. Throughout the years, their operations have been measured, which has helped in making the company one of the top companies in the field financially. Debt-free, the company can march toward new milestones.

– We’ve accumulated capital and buffers little by little; thanks to that, we can now face these challenging times with our minds at ease, Arto Orjasniemi, the CEO and a partner of Kuusamo Log Houses, summarizes. The building industry is used to strong economic cycles, but the current bump in the road is larger than ever before.

– The market situation affects the growth objectives written in our strategy, but we believe we’ll get back to our original plan after a few challenging years. We have the necessary tools and a skilled staff to develop our operations.

Truly individual log homes

Kuusamo Log Houses relies on its own design work. Indeed, the company is quite flexible for a house factory, as both layouts and structures can be adapted to the needs of the customers – with building codes in mind, of course. The needs of customers have changed over the years, but raw materials, requirements, lamination methods and the expertise of employees have developed over the past 25 years, as well. A good example of the design skills of Kuusamo Log Houses is their hit model Nuuna; its popularity shows that the company has been able to renew and reform based on the needs of its customers.

– Our customers appreciate the same things we do, and they’re willing to invest in quality products with security of supply and schedules that are upheld. Our customers know that they get what they ordered, Orjasniemi says.

Building a log home is a climate act

In its operation, Kuusamo Log Houses relies on local, high-quality raw material, which is not only good for the well-being but is also renewable and stores carbon. The house factory doesn’t have to go around the country to gather raw material, as the logs come from next door, from the Pölkky sawmill. Pölkky acquires its timber from Koillismaa and Kainuu. According to Virranniemi, our own, renewable natural resources should be utilized in the current world situation.

– Wood building is good for the climate. This should be highlighted in public dialogue. The wood felled in a forest become, e.g., log houses, which store carbon. New trees are planted to replace the felled, and when a forest is well-maintained, it will grow again, Virranniemi says, while calling for the public sector to encourage wood building.

– For example, the plans for building wooden apartment buildings haven’t come as far as those for concrete apartment buildings, even though their costs are pretty much the same.

From Kitkajärvi to house factory

The story of Kuusamo Log Houses began on the shores of Kitkajärvi in Northern Kuusamo, where brothers Simo and Arto Orjasniemi began building villas and houses at the beginning of the 1990s. Their high-quality log homes sold so well that they needed more people to run the company. At the same time, brothers Jouko and Antti Virranniemi ran the local sawmill, Pölkky Oy. Soon the Orjasniemi and Virranniemi brothers joined forces, thus founding Kuusamo Log Houses in early 1998.

More information: CEO Arto Orjasniemi, arto.orjasniemi@kuusamohirsitalot.fi, t. +358 44 778 9292