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.