Climate-neutral floor structure: CircoFloor

CircoFloor is an innovative and patented flooring system that combines better 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 PUR or insulation screed. It retains heat much more efficiently, which both increases your comfort and lowers 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.

With a weight of 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 36 tons/m² and the 14 adjustment screws a load-bearing capacity of 2.8 tons/m², making it suitable for various applications.

In addition, CircoFloor significantly reduces environmental impact by producing half the CO2 emissions compared to traditional flooring systems. The versatility and durability of CircoFloor make it a future-proof flooring solution that meets the highest standards of quality and performance.

Traditional floors are 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 Flanders Circular Open Call project in 2017. This was the beginning for us to focus on environmentally friendly alternatives for floor structures.

We then started developing the Staenis leveling grid floor structure to make it circular with heights up to a maximum of 13 cm, which are now continuously used mainly by DIY enthusiasts.

Afterwards, the Green Deal Circular Building was 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 load-bearing capacity must be extremely high to have a surplus of load-bearing capacity, as with a screed floor.
The insulation value is extremely important; it must score equal to or higher than a floor structure with sprayed PUR.
At the acoustic level, we need to achieve good damping, both for sound and vibrations.
The installation should be light and fast; only light labor is required 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 demountable and reusable.

The result: CircoFloor

In the following years, we continuously gained experience in the world of dry floors. These insights made us realize what kind of product was needed to provide an effective solution that could 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 future developments.

The system has ultimately become what we have been working towards: In short: CircoFloor is better than sprayed PUR and screed; it is cheaper, demountable, and immediately walkable.

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 from time to time to build up this floor structure. For example, a hemp-lime load-bearing floor under the CircoFloor system, other types of boards for the system, and circular floor coverings, such as tiles like Drytile, which do not require tile adhesive to be installed.

Our goal

The ultimate goal is to reduce the massive emissions of cement and chemical products and thus eliminate waste streams by making the floor structure reusable.

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