Construction | The 33 million euro swimming hall still has problems in Espoo

Matin village The swimming pool has been struggling with defects for two years. Now the biggest faults have been fixed, but small faults can still be found.

The swimming pool was open for two months in the summer, during June and July, when annual maintenance work was carried out in the building. During the annual maintenance work, a leak was found in the children’s pool, which is why the children’s pool was out of use for a while after the swimming hall opened.

However, new shutters are not currently planned for the hall, as smaller defects can be repaired without shutters, says the CEO of Espoo Tilalavjevanten Maija Lehtinen.

In addition to the summer, the swimming pool was also closed for two months at the end of last year. As soon as the hall opened, there were disturbances in the lockers and one of the men’s saunas had to be closed.

At that time, structural defects were found in the floors of the shower rooms and in the floor drains. In the spring, the swimming hall suffered from odor problems in the washrooms.

Previously there have been problems with the electrical cabinets in the dressing rooms. The sauna boards have been too high, the sauna doors have repeatedly broken and the faucets have not worked.

Lehtinen says that now most of the problems have been fixed. Sewer odors have now been brought under control by installing new odor traps on the men’s and women’s side of the sewer lines below the washrooms.

The fault in the locker rooms’ electronic cabinets, on the other hand, was caused by connection problems with the internal network’s communication connections, Lehtinen says.

The unpleasant smells have now disappeared, confirms a regular visitor to the swimming hall Kati Pap-Dévényi. Instead, the electronic lockers in the dressing rooms have been out of use.

Also, the locker display, where you should point your wristband to find your locker, has often been out of order.

He is also surprised that the swimsuit line, which has been out of action for almost the entire year, has not been repaired. The matter arouses wonder and discussion with regular visitors to the swimming hall.

“Such things are annoying. How can these not be fixed at once? You would think that two months would have been enough to fix them,” says Pap-Dévényi.

He says that he also gave feedback on the matter to the staff of the swimming hall. However, they can’t do anything about it, because the matter belongs to the Center for Land Management.

From faults there will still be some feedback for the pool employees, says the sports center manager Tomi Ovaska confirm.

“However, we are not responsible for the facilities, but for the operation of the swimming hall, so our staff can only pass the information on,” says Ovaska.

Lehtinen of Tilalapjevanten says that some of the faults are due to heavy use of the hall.

“But, for example, cabinets break down in use due to heavy wear and tear,” he says.

The number of users of the hall is estimated at around 400,000 visitors per year.

The construction of the swimming pool cost about 33 million euros. According to Lehtinen’s estimate, 40,000–50,000 euros have gone into the repairs so far.