In February it was 35 years since Tom Palmgren started working at Enervent Zehnder. During this time, the development of ventilation units has progressed by leaps and bounds. But chance had its hand in the game when Tom ended up in the business.

When an energy engineering student from Loviisa was thinking about the topic for his diploma thesis in the late 1980s, he took out the telephone directory for his county. Combinent was at the beginning of the alphabet and CEO Robert Hägg answered the call. The phone call was the start of a more than 30-year career in ventilation technology.

From a thesis to a working career

Just a few years before Tom called, Hägg, an entrepreneur in the metal industry, himself a technology-enthusiastic innovator, had manufactured the first ventilation units.

– At the first meeting, I immediately received a proposal for the topic for my final thesis. I studied HVAC engineering as a specialization option and at Combinent I focused on the rotary heat exchanger in my work. Tom says that his entire career began somewhat by chance with the study of heat recovery with rotary heat exchangers.

He has been in several different positions, the common thread in his career has always been development.

– In the beginning I was doing product design and electrical and automation design. I have also been involved in sales and made offers. Sometimes technical support has been needed in the customer interface. After all, accounting has never been assigned to Tom.

Growth and internationalization

In the early 2000s, Combinent’s name became Enervent. Tom moved to the position of technical director when Ensto, an international family company in the electrical industry, bought the ventilation manufacturer from Porvoo.

– The business had grown steadily, and production was separated from product development under Ensto. Then it also became my responsibility to monitor the regulation at both national and EU level. Related to that, my duties include quality issues and certifications as well as monitoring of standardization work, Tom lists the job description today.

Advances in technology

It is easy for Tom Palmgren to name the most important milestones from a technology perspective.

– The company’s success is based on the right choice of strategic technology, i.e., switching to the rotary heat exchanger. The next significant change was the development of digitalization, the change from AC fans to DC fans and the transition to heat pump technology. In this way, we made our units more energy efficient than before, which is an important competitive advantage even today.

During the last ten years, development has been rapid and customer oriented. Among other things, digital connections to various property management systems and development of mobile solutions have been an automatic continuum. In addition, the effect of the regulations will become increasingly important in product development.

What made you stay with the company for so long?

– Managers and owners have always had an encouraging attitude towards new development ideas and their testing. This has also been realized in recent years as part of the Zehnder Group. The most important thing, of course, is the good spirit in the working community that has been preserved despite growth and changes.

Enervent Zehnder has launched a mobile app that controls ventilation units. The development of the new mobile solution is an automatic continuation of the company’s 40 years of product development. Today, most people have a smartphone or tablet at their disposal and with the iSLa mobile app, it’s easy to control the ventilation also remotely.

Mikael Karlsson, who is in charge of the supply chain at Enervent Zehnder, says that customers have for some time called for the ability to monitor and adjust the ventilation equipment regardless of their own location. However, he points out that, as a rule, all Enervent Zehnder equipment are self-controlled.

– Our ventilation units operate independently, and they and continuously measure environmental conditions such as indoor humidity. The control panels are mainly needed for commissioning the ventilation machine, for changing the operating mode, and for taking care of maintenance reminders or random errors. The new application receives all notifications completely independent of your location, says Karlsson.

iSLa will gradually replace the separate control panels that are supplied with the machines. Originally control panels replaced the control switches that used to be earlier attached to the machines.

– The most significant change compared to the previous solution is that iSLa app serves ventilation units with both eAir and eWind controls. To use the application, a wifi module is required, which is supplied with the new ventilation units, says Mikael Karlsson.

iSLa minimises component demand and plastic waste

The app will help reduce the need to order components from Asia and at the same time reduce plastic waste. Enervent Zehnder will launch a dedicated section to application for installers in late summer. When remote monitoring of the ventilation becomes possible thanks to the application, it will reduce the need for on-site maintenance visits.

Mikael Karlsson confirms that owners of ventilation equipment do not need to do anything during the transition.

– The control panels will be left out of the deliveries during this year. However, support and spare parts deliveries will continue for many years to come. If you wish, you can contact customer service to ensure that the app is available for your older device. iSLa, like other apps, can be downloaded from the Google Play and AppStore app stores.

– We are proud of our product development. Remote control will have a positive environmental impact.

For more information: Mikael Karlsson, Supply Chain Manager, mikael.karlsson@enervent.com

The year 2023 is a double anniversary year for Enervent Zehnder. Our company turns 40 this year and in Norway we have marketed ventilation units under the name Exvent for 20 years.

Today, Enervent Zehnder is part of the Zehnder Group. The globally active group improves the quality of life by offering innovative indoor climate solutions. However, few people know that our own story began with payment difficulties at a customer of a company in the metal industry.

Parts for ventilation units as payment of invoice

Our history is an excellent example of entrepreneurial spirit, the desire to develop technology and understand customer needs. It all started in 1983 with a metal company called Combinent. The founder Robert Hägg received from the customer parts for a ventilation unit as compensation for an invoice instead of money, and he became interested in the technology in the field.

After studying the options in more detail, Hägg decided to be the first in Finland to start manufacturing units with rotary heat exchangers. The continuous and steplessly adjustable operation of the rotary heat exchanger is still the best solution for most households in terms of ventilation and energy efficiency.

Strong investment in product development

Our business has steadily grown and internationalized, and the owners have changed, but production has remained in Porvoo, Finland. There is more that hasn’t changed. Energy efficiency in ventilation has been at the core of Enervent Zehnder’s product development for four decades. All product development still takes place in our own premises, where the climate laboratory that performs continuous tests is also located.

The picture shows our technology manager Tom Palmgren and one of the first units in the LTR series in the late 1980s. Our most famous product is Pingvin, which was introduced to the market in 1995 and gained the status of a legend, of which updated versions were sold for no less than 24 years.

At the beginning of the 2000s, we were looking for a solution to combine heat pump and ventilation. The result was the patented Pelican HP, which was released in 2007. Last year we introduced the ventilation unit Enervent Svea, whose characteristics, thanks to advanced fan technology, correspond to units in a larger size category. With the Cooler module, we made it even better.

A festive year characterized by work

We celebrate the anniversary throughout the year and invite our various stakeholders to visit Porvoo. If you want to put together a group from your own company, you can contact Andrei Leventcov, who is responsible for export sales, via email.