Wood Floor Hardness

While the complete janka hardness listings will reveal that there are some fairly hard softwoods and some relatively soft hardwoods in the species most commonly used in flooring the identifiers hold true.

Wood floor hardness. It measures the force required to embed an 11 28 millimetres 0 444 in diameter steel ball halfway into a sample of wood. Relative hardness of wood flooring species. Forest service list the relative hardness for numerous wood species used in flooring. The janka test measures the amount of force required to embed a 0 444 steel ball into the wood to half of its diameter.

Solid hardwood flooring will always be stronger than hardwood veneer engineered flooring. Below are listed the relative hardness for numerous wood species used in flooring. The janka hardness test from the austrian born emigrant gabriel janka 1864 1932 measures the resistance of a sample of wood to denting and wear. The scale used in the table is pounds force.

Hardwoods are better than softwoods. These ratings were done using the janka hardness test. Wood hardness chart species alphabetical hardness species by hardness hardness mahogany honduran 800 padauk 1725 mahogany santos 2200 tabaccowood 1750 maple hard north american 1450 rosewood bolivian 1780 maple ivory 1500 bamboo carbonized 1800 maple soft 999 hickory 1820 merbau 1925 pecan 1820 mesquite 2345 yellowheart 1820. The janka scale is used to determine the relative hardness of particular domestic or exotic wood species.

A common use of janka hardness ratings is to determine whether a species is suitable for use as flooring.