CARING FOR THE WELL-BEING OF BOTH PEOPLE AND THE NATURAL ENVIRONMENT
A log house is a 100% natural product. It is a safe and healthy home for the entire family, even lasting across generations thanks to its longevity. A log home built today can still be in use hundreds of years from now.
A house built with solid logs naturally stabilises the moisture in the air. When outdoor air is warm and moist in the summer, solid log absorbs the moisture into its structure. When outdoor air is dry and cold in the winter, the common problem with indoor air is dryness. Solid log will however release the moisture it absorbed in the summer to improve the quality of indoor air.
In Finland, the indoor air in log houses has been studied for example by e.g. the Institute for Welfare and Health, operating in the Finnish public sector.
(Anttila, Pekkonen & Haverinen-Shaughnessy 2012 )
Read the fully study THL — Report 65/2012 p. 25 Housing health and satisfaction in log-frame houses. Report based on Altti survey. Anttila, Mira; Pekkonen, Maria; Haverinen-Shaughnessy, Ulla (2012)
The Polar Life Haus sawmill is located in Töysä in Central Finland. We buy our wood within a range of 100 km from the sawmill, which is reflected in the excellent quality of the timber.
We only use grade A and B wood as our raw material. A log house that you buy from us is a fully Finnish product all the way from the raw materials to the customer delivery.
Central Finland has an optimal climate for the growth of spruce specifically. The region is home to spruce that grows few branches but provides hard timber thanks to the suitable climate. Going farther up north, the cold begins to affect the growth of the trees, causing more branches to grow. This can be seen in the number of knots in finished logs. Conversely, going down south, trees grow faster thanks to the warmer weather. Quickly growing lumber is soft. This influences the durability, safety, and appearance of the end product.
Wood is a carbon sink throughout its lifespan, including when it is used to build a house. Your solid log home can thus act as a carbon sink from the growth phase of the trees to hundreds of years thereafter.
The carbon footprint of homes, hotels, schools, and other infrastructure elements built of wood remains significantly smaller than that of other construction types. Logs do not become hazardous waste at the end of their life either, meaning that they will not incur end-stage wastage costs either.
Examples of public log construction projects are the hotels El Lodge in Spain, Kurula´s Resort and Kultakero at Pyhätunturi, as well as the comprehensive school at Virrat.
Raw materials are sourced in Finland at a distance of 100 km from the factory, meaning low transportation costs.
Log production can even produce excess energy, as the amount of energy waste generated as a side product exceeds the energy required to make the products. In practice, this means that the log waste generated at Polar Life Haus is further refined into chips and dust. These we use to heat all of our production facilities. We also sell some chips for heating purposes. Thus, we use all of the wood we source and replace the need for imported energy that would otherwise be required for production.
Forests are a matter of pride for Finns, and we appreciate all of our forests.
Both forestry industries and private owners as well as wood-procuring customers are bound by various responsibilities and obligations in Finland. Finland has in place a system of Forestry Associations, which assist private persons in the ownership of forests and the trade of lumber. Each forest has its own forest management plan, which is intended to support the owner in the appropriate care for the forest. This is also closely associated with the lumber trade and the obligations in place there. When a Finnish forest owner sells wood, the Forest Act requires them to take care of regeneration, meaning the planting of new saplings.
We always purchase our raw materials via Finnish Forestry Associations. This guarantees that the wood we buy is ecologically sustainable and felled in a way that ensures that new crops have been planted in place of the harvested wood, which additionally opens up a new carbon sink.
We are PEFC certified, which means that the wood we use is sourced from sustainable forests and controlled harvests.
A log house you buy from us is an environmental act – many times over!
More information about the PEFC certificate
Responsibility has been the foundation of Polar Life Haus’s operations from the very beginning. For us, building houses is a commitment to a sustainable future. That’s why we want to share our sustainability work openly and transparently. We have prepared an ESG responsibility report for 2024 and committed to annual reporting.
An ESG report in accordance with the EU VSME Standard demonstrates how we take into account the environment, people, and good governance in our operations – and how we are committed to developing more sustainable business practices. For our customers, it is a guarantee that building with us is environmentally friendly, sustainable, transparent, and forward-looking.
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