Energy saving renovations

One of the purposes of Majavan tila osk is to defend the commons from the climate crisis, by bringing Finland closer to carbon neutrality. We are happy to announce that we have managed to reduce our direct energy usage (electricity costs) by approximately 50 % with a small investment in energy saving.

Our energy use

As discussed previously, the main contributions to carbon emissions that we expect to help reduce are those from building construction and heating. By taking over a space which had previously been almost unused for years, and would soon not be able to contribute to the maintenance costs of the building any more, we help extend the useful life of our building. Also, our building has plans to renovate our front doors, which are currently a major heat leak during winter and therefore probably contribute to higher usage of our district heating (which is not carbon neutral).

From a practical perspective, though, our main energy use is the electricity we consume when using our space in Kauppalantie 22. When we received the space, which is about 260 m², most of the lights were fluorescent tubes installed on light fixtures of the early 2000s or late 1990s. They were adequate for the purpose, but not satisfactory in terms of comfort or efficiency.

Thanks to OmaHelen, the web service from our city-owned energy company, we were able to analyse hourly consumption data very easily. Since October 2024, it has held constant that the spaces in Kauppalantie are used for about 7 hours a day. With 2 kW used just for illumination, the opportunities for savings were obvious.

With a few simple changes and an investment of about 30 € on energy timers and 600 € on new lamps, we have reduced our electricity usage from about 400 kWh to about 200 kWh per month. (A 45 % reduction on daily power usage in February 2025 compared to November 2024.) We expect the investment to be paid back in a year or less.

LED lamps

T8 tubes are easy to replace with compatible LED tubes, which are just plastic or glass cilinders with a LED strip and some transformers/electronics to handle the different power supplies. Modern LED tubes provide about 160 lumen/watt (lm/W), or almost twice as much as fluorescent tubes, and are expected to last longer. After some research we found a model of T8 tube (120 cm, 4000 K) which provides 3100 lm for 18 W at a reasonable price (Sylvania 5410288292854).

It took perhaps two hours to replace over 40 tubes and cut our electricity usage in half. We did not even need a ballast bypass except on two fixtures which had two tubes installed in a series, but we will probably still remove the ballasts in the future as they are now just useless heaters.

T5 tubes and light fixtures are less common and therefore more expensive to replace; moreover, we did not like the fixtures we had. We decided to replace them with LED panels. While there is a significant supply of (barely) used LED panels on tori.fi, often they are old, inefficient and low quality. We spent many hours examining unclear announcements, but we eventually managed to find good quality panels with an efficienty of at least 140-160 lm/W and a decent light distribution which is not too harsh on the eye. With some creativity, we managed to reuse all the existing cabling to hold the panels.

The lights to illuminate our front banner remain switched on all night long, activated by a natural light sensor. The pre-existing fluorescent lamps were switched on without actually providing light. Given the banner’s LED lamps now consume less than 40 W, we consider this to be a reasonable investment to help people notice Pyöräpaja: every person who manages to cycle more helps us reduce transport emissions.

Waste removal

Our decommissioned fixtures were mostly aluminum and fit the small metals bin once folded. The internal electronics are very lightweight, except the ballast, which is probably mostly copper (and should probably be recycled with electrical waste).

The fluorescent tubes however contain mercury and must be handled with care. Annoyingly, the “Sortti” municipal recycling stations would treat them as hazardous waste, even though they are actually recyclable. The only official collection point for fluorescent lamps of this size is in Vantaa. Fortunately, we were able to leave our ~45 fluorescent tubes to Kierrätyskeskus Kyläsaari, which hopefully delivers them to the actual recycling centre.

Energy timers

After reducing our electricity usage by some 50 %, we noticed some stubborn usage of around 100-150 W, constantly, overnight and for multiple days. Clearly some device used during opening hours tended to remain switched on later and hog electricity for no good reason. To confirm the sources of power usage we used a simple wall-plug power meter.

While the impact on energy usage is minimal during opening hours, it was dominant during closing hours, so these energy hogs ended up accounting for 10-20 % of our electricity bill.

We can’t do much about the fridge, which probably consumes about 220 kWh/year. However it is easy to reduce the consumption from the compressor (which is only needed when people fill their tyres but would keep maintaining its pressure, consuming 1000 W for brief periods all night long) and the hi-fi (which never really shuts down and consumes about 100 W all the time; it’s easy to forget when you disconnect the bluetooth sound source). The compressor’s noise is a reminder of its power usage, but the sound system is usually silent or inaudible when forgotten.

We bought two very cheap 24h mechanical timers for about 5 € each and a proximity sensor timer for about 20 €. As our space has many users, it’s essential to have a power saving method which is easy to use, otherwise people will simply bypass it; there is an aspect of constant education and negotiation. The 24h timer was not enough because people listen to music at unpredictable times, so we could only set it to switch off in the early morning, but we don’t want to keep the sound system switched on for 16+ hours a day if someone switches it on in the morning. The motion sensor has worked well on busy days but only has a 4-minute timer so we’ll need to see if it keeps people sufficiently happy. If not, we’ll need to program our own.

Future renovations

We are still working on improving our internal ventilation. During winter we have been able to monitor our CO2 levels and relative humidity, so we have an idea of how much more ventilation is needed (some but not that much). We expect we can improve the healthiness of the space with rather minimal changes, to add some air circulation only when the space is in use without requiring any specialised knowledge from the participants in the space.

The building’s company is preparing significant renovations to the balconies of the residential apartments, which unfortunately won’t do much to reduce the building’s energy use but will increase our debt level, so it remains to be seen whether we can significantly impact our energy usage for heating.

Our dear supplier

We have been very happy with the services of Alppi-Rauta, a small/medium business based in Alppila (near Kallio/Vallila). Alppi-Rauta staff is extremely knowledgeable and helpful. Without them, we would not have managed to source the exact model of LED lamps we were thinking about, and we would probably have ended up using lamps of a lower energy class.

Their delivery service is also very useful. While we are fans of #CarryShitOlympics and tend to transport everything on cargo bikes, the risk of breaking a bunch of new lamps by slipping on an icy bike path would not have been fun.

Support local businesses and go purchase your DIY supplies from Alppi-Rauta instead of major chains!

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