Climate-neutral floor structure: CircoFloor

CircoFloor is an innovative and patented flooring system that combines improved thermal and acoustic performance with a lightweight, environmentally friendly and fully customizable construction.

Thanks to the extra usable height, CircoFloor offers much better insulation than traditional systems such as sprayed polyurethane or insulation screed. It retains heat much more efficiently, which increases your comfort and reduces energy costs.

CircoFloor offers excellent acoustic properties and ensures a quiet and comfortable living environment, making it ideal for both new construction and renovation projects.

Weighing only 10 kg/m², compared to 100 kg/m² for traditional floors, it improves ergonomics and reduces the load on the structure. At the same time, the structure achieves a load-bearing capacity of 50 tons/m², making it suitable for various applications.

In addition, CircoFloor significantly reduces the environmental impact by producing ten times less CO2 emissions than traditional flooring systems. The versatility and sustainability of CircoFloor make it a future-proof flooring solution that meets the highest quality and performance standards.

Traditional flooring is often polluting, heavy and difficult to recycle, with long drying times and limited adaptability. CircoFloor, on the other hand, offers a circular, lightweight solution that is fully recyclable and adaptable, with direct installation without drying time.

The origin of the CircoFloor system

It all started with the first Vlaanderen Circulair Open Call project in 2017. This was the beginning for us to focus on environmentally friendly alternatives for floor constructions.

We then started developing the Staenis levelling grid floor structure to make it circular with heights of up to 13 cm, which are now continuously used mainly by do-it-yourselfers.

The Green Deal Circular Construction was then also launched, in which we participated to gather as much information as possible and thus get ideas about what a sustainable floor structure should look like and how it should be applied.

Our challenges

It became clear that the only solution was that if we offer a circular alternative, it must be equivalent in performance to a screed floor. The challenge was to create a floor system that feels identical to a regular screed floor, so that the difference is not noticeable:

The bearing capacity must be extremely high in order to have an excess of bearing capacity, such as with a screed floor.
The insulation value is extremely important; it should score equal to or higher than a floor structure with sprayed PUR.
At acoustic level we need to achieve good damping, both for sound and vibrations.
The installation should be light and fast; only light work to install the floor system as quickly as possible.
The system must be extremely flexible and adaptable to connect to walls and to allow utilities to pass through.
And all this while the system must be fully dismountable and reusable.

The result: CircoFloor

In the following years we have continuously gained experience in the world of dry floors. These insights have made us realize what kind of product was needed to provide an effective solution that can compete with a sand cement screed.

In 2022, we started a development project at Vlaio to realize this system. After completing the entire process, we created an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) through the project, which serves as a basis for later developments.

The system ultimately became what we had been working towards: In short: CircoFloor is better than sprayed PUR and screed; it is cheaper, demountable and can be walked on immediately.

Future steps

Furthermore, it is now our task to have everything tested, both for load, acoustics and fire tests, so that we can share this information. Also, new types of combinations will be possible every now and then to build this floor structure. Such as a lime hemp supporting floor under the CircoFloor system, other types of plating for the system and circular floor coverings, such as tiles like Drytile, which do not require tile adhesive to be placed.

Our goal

The ultimate goal is to reduce the enormous emissions of cement and chemical products and thus eliminate waste flows because the floor structure can be reused.

By reducing the CO₂ emissions associated with traditional building materials, we actively contribute to combating global warming. We believe that if we reduce our ecological footprint together, we can have a positive impact on the climate and create a more sustainable future for generations to come.