Painting of the Helsinki Paddling Centre
Basic information
Location: Helsinki
Surface area to be painted: 1 600m2
Year of construction: 1994
Date of implementation: Early summer 2025
Scope of the project: Maintenance painting of wooden and metal facade surfaces and painting of door and window frames
”The groundwork was done very well and to a very high standard, even though it took a lot of time. Observations were always discussed immediately. Pensla's people were very sensitive to the specificities of our site. The premises were visited by many customers and members of our associations during the painting work every day, often more than 100. What was being worked on at any given time was agreed upon flexibly, taking our needs into account. Our members said that the Pensla people worked like their own and were well received. They worked long hours when necessary to get things done within the promised timeframe. The end result was good. We would recommend Pensla to others.”
In the early summer of 2025, we carried out a maintenance painting contract for the Helsinki Paddling Centre. The traditional Helsinki building was given a completely new look with a thorough overhaul of its run-down surfaces. We painted all the wooden surfaces of the façade, the exterior doors, most of the window frames and all the metal parts. The building, which was completed in 1994, had only been repainted once in its history, the last time in 2008. The worn paint surface had not been maintained in time, which had resulted in significant deterioration of the wooden cladding on the exterior. A new, carefully executed maintenance coat was needed immediately on all wood and metal surfaces of the building.
Outdoor housing
In the absence of paint protection, much of the cladding had rotted away, and all the rotted cladding boards had to be replaced before painting. After checking the condition of all the boards and measuring the moisture content, our carpenters replaced a total of 500 metres of cladding.
The replaced boards were primed with Teknos Woodex Base primer and base-coated with Teknos Nordica Primer. The priming and base-coating protected the wood material from moisture and ensured good adhesion and longevity of the topcoat.
The wooden surfaces of the façade, especially the previously unpainted fascia boards and soffits, had accumulated a lot of mould. The mould removal process took an exceptionally long time, as all surfaces had to be completely clean before painting. A total of 150 man-hours were spent on mould removal.
The wooden surfaces of the façade also had a lot of flaking paint, so we went through all the surfaces to be painted by scraping and sanding off any flaking paint.
After this, all exposed wooden surfaces were primed with Teknos Woodex Base primer and base-coated with Teknos Nordica Primer. The fascia boards and soffits were almost entirely exposed wood, so they had to be primed and base-coated in their entirety.
The groundwork, apart from repairs to the rot, took up about half of the entire facade painting project, which is exceptionally high.
After careful groundwork, we applied the top coat. As the old paint surface was in very poor condition, we repainted all the wooden surfaces of the façade twice. The large, uniform surfaces allowed the efficient use of a high-pressure paint sprayer: the paint was applied with the sprayer and then worked into the wood with a brush. The topcoat used was Teknos Nordica Classic, a very high quality house paint.
Metal parts
The paddling centre property had a lot of rusted metal parts, such as doors, stairs and poles, which we completely renovated. The surfaces were washed, sanded to remove rust and primed with Tikkurila Temacoat RM 40 two-component primer twice. Finally, the surfaces were topcoated with Tikkurila Temadur 90 two-component topcoat in two coats. These 2K paints are very durable and provide a very strong mechanical finish.
External doors
The painting contract included painting all 13 wooden exterior doors of the property and varnishing the handles. The work on the doors also started with a thorough mould cleaning. The old paint finish was in poor condition, so the door surfaces were sanded and roughened using a non-centre sander. The holes in the doors were patched with a wooden putty knife. The doors were then primed with Teknos Futura Aqua Primer and topcoated twice with Teknos Futura Aqua 40. The handles were sanded down to the wood and varnished three times with tinted Tikkurila Unica Super 60 varnish.
Window frames
At the end of the project, we replaced the paint on the deteriorated wooden window frames. The frame was mould-washed, roughened throughout, primed with Tikkurila Ultra Primer and topcoated twice with Tikkurila Ultra Classic.
Result
The Helsinki Paddling Centre has been given a completely redesigned look for its centenary year. We thoroughly refurbished all exterior surfaces, which means that the people at the Melontakeskus can rest assured that the building's exterior will be in good condition for at least the next decade.