Cottage Hapero - Mikkeli

HBO

This is a difficult review to write. The cottage is great, in a beautiful spot, well equipped, a sauna house with wood oven at a pristine lake. However, there are a few things the owner won't tell you on the website. The minor aspect is the advertised private beach in addition to the jetty. One can see that it used to be there, but in cannot be used anymore as the path is overgrown with shrubs and the beach is overgrown with reeds. The more critical aspect is that the house has been built as a passive house. In principle, this would commendable and should be praised, BUT it has been implemented in a way that radically effects the comfort of your stay. Imagine you have to sleep at 22°C or warmer even when the outside temperatures are well below 15°C because you can't open windows!!! And because the ventilation system can't handle heat generated by the plain presence of the guests' bodies. The approach offered by the owner was to use the air condition in the living room to bring down the temperature there below 18°C and then cool the bedrooms with a ventilator blowing air from the living room in one of the bedrooms at a time. Of course this means all doors have to be open and the living room is pretty darn cold. This is neither practical nor energy efficient.
Imagine you want to enjoy the beautiful wood stove in the living room. This will heat up the living room quickly, but you'll need the AC to bring temperatures down when you want to go to bed. You could open the doors, but that aggravates the problem with the bedrooms as the central ventilation shuts down immediately when one or more doors are open, so the temperature in the bedrooms will rise and air quality deteriorates.
Our experience with comparable high quality pricy cabins is that owners tend to be generous when a small items breaks. Not the Valkonen's. We broke a coffee filter holder of an 15+ years old coffee machine, worth 16€. They asked for 30€ to replace it. Nevermind we paid 2815€ for a one week stay.
Overall, the experience has been mixed. A lovely house with major flaws and an unexpected lack of generosity.

Stas P.

Great cottage

Alexander L.

Matees P.

Yosef D.

Veera V.