Huliswood Oy

In northern Finland, many new buildings, quarters and even villages have been built of Kelo-wood, or snags, in the last few years. In southern Finland, there are holiday cottages and houses made of Kelo-wood. Many people are of the opinion that the traditional Finnish sauna, especially the chimneyless smoke sauna, is not proper unless it is made of Kelo-wood.

Building structures made of Finnish Kelo-wood are exported to Central Europe and Japan, and if you visit the skiing centers in Germany and Austria, you can see hotels and luxury saunas built of Kelo-wood. For example, the Finnish companies Ikihirsi Oy and Rantasalmi Oy use Huliswood Kelo-wood in their exported log products.

A cottage made of Kelo-wood is a sign of its owner's status, but it also shows that the owner respects quality. Even though Kelo-wood is a more expensive building material than industrial logs, it has many advantages compared to industrial logs. Kelo-wood does not subside noticeably, and the interior and exterior walls do not need any surface treatment. A building hand carved of hundreds of years old pine Kelo-wood retains its value in the years to come.

What is Kelo-wood?

Kelo-wood is a snag, a standing dead tree, usually pine. The Kelo-pines in the Arctic climate zone have a silver-gray patina on the surface, and the heartwood is red. The darker the heartwood, the further north the pine has grown.

In the north of Finland, trees grow up to 400 years. The process of an old tree becoming a snag takes another couple of decades. The process gives the snag its set form that remains the same even when used as a building material. Therefore, buildings made of Kelo-wood hardly subside or distort.