When my customer are planning their new flooring project, they often ask “What is the best wood?” for flooring, to which I usually respond, “it depends.” When my customers are concerned with durability, I will often guide them into picking a harder wood species for their floor. This is because the harder a wood is, the less susceptible to denting and scratches it will be. Wood hardness is calculated using the Janka Ball Harness Test.

The Janka Ball Hardness Test measures the force required to embed a 11.28 millimeter (0.444 inch) steel ball into wood to half its diameter. This method was chosen so that the result would leave an indention 100 square millimeters in size. It is one of the best measures of the ability of a wood species to withstand denting and wear. It is also a good indicator of how hard a species is to saw or nail.

The Janka Ball Hardness Test ranks hardness in a range from about 350-3800. The most common hardwood used for flooring in the United States is Red Oak which has a relatively low hardness of 1250. The Janka ranking for Red Oak is 1290, whereas Brazilian Cherry has a Janka of 2350, which is Double that of Red Oak. That means that you can reasonably expect much more durability from Brazilian Cherry than that Red Oak.

Now the downside to this is that the harder a wood species is, the more expensive it usually is. Red Oak is very common, readily available, and inexpensive. People staying in their homes for a long time will benefit from the upgrade to a harder wood as it will add value to the home, help their home sell faster in the future, and most importantly, the harder floors reduces will reduce the cost of maintenance, as the floor will need to be sanded less often. A softer (cheaper) floor may be less expensive up front, but it will need to be sanded more often, which shortens the life of the floor and costs much more long term.

Below you find a short list of common wood species and their hardness: