Hämeenlinna Facility Services minimizes moisture problems in buildings with IoT monitoring

In its construction quality control, the City of Hämeenlinna's Building Services pays special attention to the timeliness of concrete casting coating work and good drying conditions, so that future moisture problems in buildings can be minimized. Wiistee's IoT sensors help in the work. They will continue to be included in new contracts ordered by Building Services.

– We want to prevent all problems related to the drying and coating of concrete pours as much as we can, says Kari-Pekka Leppänen, construction supervisor at the City of Hämeenlinna's Tilapalvelu. The contractor is responsible for the coatings in the contracts ordered by Tilapalvelu and makes the final coatingability measurements. Tilapalvelu uses the data from Wiiste's sensors in quality control. The concrete drying data obtained from Wiiste's IoT sensors is combined with the data provided by the construction site's IoT condition meters, which enables reactions during the contract if the drying conditions need to be improved. The sensors are also useful in monitoring other work phases. – For example, if the condition meter shows a temperature of 10 degrees when coating work is about to begin on the site, the conditions are wrong. We can now react to that, says Kari-Pekka Leppänen.

The success of the library wall moisture repair was confirmed with a sensor

Facilities services have also used Wiistee sensors for purposes other than monitoring concrete pours and conditions.

– Moisture had leaked through the earth pressure wall of the Hämeenlinna Main Library all the way inside. Repairs were made to the cladding on the outside of the wall, and Wiistee SH3 button sensors were installed under the carpet, Leppänen says. – We were able to use them to monitor whether the repair had solved the problem and the wall had remained dry. If the moisture values had started to rise, we could have reacted to the situation preventively before moisture damage had occurred.

The SH3, which measures relative humidity and temperature, has been developed for monitoring buildings during use, for example under waterproofing or behind a vapor barrier.

IoT humidity measurement in school, kindergarten and wellness center construction projects

The City of Hämeenlinna's Tilapalvelut adopted Wiisteen's solutions in 2019. The first contract sites were the new daycare center building in Katuma, the construction of the Ruunumylly school and the new buildings of the Lammi wellness center. At the time of the interview, Wiisteen's IoT sensors were also in use in Hämeenlinna at the construction site of the Vuorentaan school. They also play an important role in the construction work of the new Kauriala school that will begin in the spring. Tilapalvelut has also taken other measures to avoid moisture problems in buildings. - Particular attention has been paid to the weather shelters of the contract sites. Conditions inside the weather shelters have also been measured with Wiisteen's IoT condition sensors. This has strengthened and refined the information on the transfer of moisture from the outdoor air into the weather shelter. The transition is happening really quickly, says Kari-Pekka Leppänen.

Humidity monitoring is also needed after the warranty period

Kari-Pekka Leppänen has found Wiistee's Relia and sensors easy to use.

– It has been easy to create projects in Relia. Using the reader and transferring its data to Relia is also easy. There has only been a little thought with the placement of the measurement points, but this is a surprisingly easy whole. Most of the sensors used by Hämeenlinna Tilapalvelu are IoT versions, but a hand-held reader can also be used. – As a rule, we have installed IoT versions, so that the data is automatically sent to the internet. They have worked well. However, we have not installed separate amplifiers in some basement spaces that are challenging for network coverage. These sensors are read with a hand-held reader. In Hämeenlinna, IoT concrete sensors are kept active even after the sites are completed. This way, facts about the moisture values of the concrete are available even during the warranty period. In some sites, monitoring continues for longer. On the morning of the interview, Kari-Pekka Leppänen had checked the data from the three IoT concrete sensors installed at the Katuma kindergarten in 2019. The data from the sensors at the Katuma kindergarten is transferred from the concrete to the cloud service Relia every eight hours, which is a very sufficient frequency for monitoring in this case. The battery life of the IoT sensor is long, and when the battery runs out, the data can still be measured with the Wiiste reader through the superstructures.

Hämeenlinna Tilapalvelut combines concrete drying data with data provided by IoT condition meters on the construction site, which enables reaction during the project if drying conditions need to be improved. The picture shows the installation of a Wiiste IoT condition meter on the construction site. There is a picture of the installation of a concrete IoT sensor at the beginning of the article.