Pölkky Places Its Trust in Purso Luminaires at The Kajaani Sawmill

When Pölkky Oy renovated its production facility, it also invested in high-quality lighting. Lumber is being produced under Purso luminaires around the clock.

An enormous sawmill investment: wood inside and out

The sawmill located in Kajaani belongs to the timber processing enterprise Pölkky Oy, which was acquired by Pfeifer Holding GmbH in 2022. The building that contains the saw line is in itself a masterpiece of wood construction. Its primary material is cross-laminated timber, or CLT, which is a construction board manufactured from cross-glued massive solid wood layers. The construction was very focused on the making of sustainable choices down to the smallest detail, says Pfeifer Asset Manager Christian Parzer.

– The fully wooden building has a small carbon footprint, and the entire area has been designed to allow safe interior movement between spaces using separate routes for people and vehicles.

Powerful lights support 24-hour camera surveillance of the saw line.

Domestic luminaires with an excellent price to quality ratio

Niko Hellberg (Group Manager, Granlund Oy), who had overall responsibility for the site electrical design project, says that the fact that Purso luminaires are Finnish products is “a big positive”:

– It is important for us to make sure that the tax money stays in Finland. We knew from previous experience that Purso products offer an excellent price to quality ratio and are always delivered on time.

There were several electrical designers involved in the design of the electrical systems for the Kajaani sawmill. Hellberg says that design responsibilities were divided between different building elements for the design of lighting systems as well. The design was guided by regular lighting standards, IP classifications, and surface temperature limitations.

– The Purso product portfolio offered good solutions for all purposes, and Purso technical support was on hand to offer professional support whenever needed.

A wide range of luminaires for various purposes

The sawmill primary processes are log feeding, debarking, a saw line, by-product processing, green sorting, driers, and dry sorting. Purso luminaires are used in several rooms of different types. The actual saw line room for example features the SNEP® MODE SI luminaires, which are suitable for rooms with high ceilings. The space was designed with an illuminance of 750 lux around the machine. The most important purpose of the lighting is to support the continuous camera monitoring and surveillance system.

– In highly automated process industries of this kind, the saw line is manned only occasionally, for instance to replace a saw blade or to carry out maintenance works, Parzer explains.

In rooms with low ceilings, SNEP® MODE P luminaires are used. This includes such sawmill interiors as technical rooms, containing for instance switchboards or waste heat recovery systems. SNEP® MODE P luminaires are also used in social facilities.

The MODE P luminaires are designed for rooms with low ceilings, which makes them excellent for sawmill technical rooms and other similar interiors.

A challenge for the lighting design was an outdoor canopy, where the luminaire is exposed to water vapor with a temperature of several dozen degrees when the drying oven doors are opened. The sturdy SNEP® MODE X luminaire was chosen for this part of the facility, says Hellberg.

The lumber that has passed through the entire process awaits loading in an outdoor shed under heavy duty industrial lights.

Purso and Pfeifer – family businesses with long histories

The Austrian Pfeifer Holding GmbH is a family business just like Purso, with decades of experience. Both Pfeifer and Purso are investing heavily into Finland.

Pfeifer Holding GmbH owns nine sawmills in total, four of which are Pölkky sawmills. The total combined lumber production capacity of the Pfeifer sawmills is 3.7 million cubic meters annually. Pfeifer Group production facilities process approximately 5.4 million cubic meters of timber every year, which is processed into final products. Pfeifer produces sawn and planed timber, concrete casting mold sheets, casting mold beams, CLT, glued laminated timber, as well as pallet components, briquettes, pellets, and bioelectricity.