In general terms, the hardest wood for flooring is Ipe (or Lapacho). However, it is very difficult to find, due to its rarity. This also makes it a very expensive flooring product. When choosing wooden floors for a house, the Janka scale rating can only provide buyers with an idea of the strength and hardness of the wood species, for example, to withstand very heavy furniture.
If for you, durability is the same as longevity, then solid wood will be the most durable wooden floor. Finding a good balance between the look you want and the durability of your floor will help you make the decision that's best for you. Extremely hard hardwoods are commonly used for things like decks or cutting boards, where they will be required to withstand near-constant abrasion. Oak hardwood floors not only look amazing, with their yellow-brown hue, in almost any room in the house, but they can also do their job for more than a hundred years.
Today we'll review what features to look for in hardwood floors for durability, as well as Janka hardness values for various hardwoods and softwoods. With a range of around 2350 on the Janka scale, this is the first exotic wood on the list, meaning it's not grown in the United States. So, there's no really “bad” rating when it comes time to choose your hardwood floor, out of all the hardwood floors available on the market. While there will be some natural variation from one hardwood sample to the next within a given species due to the conditions in which the tree grew and how the wood was prepared after harvesting it, there are general guidelines that are quite consistent across species.
This is by far one of the biggest disadvantages of engineered wood that exists, although most products purchased from top brands of engineered wood flooring can be refinished at least once. It is not enough to choose any of the so-called hardwood species, because hardwoods vary greatly in their hardness from one species to another, and some are actually softer than some softwood species. As a homeowner, you know that even the slightest movement of furniture can be enough to mark floors. They make hardwood floors the old-fashioned way, with super thick wood veneers and a long-lasting natural oil finish, plus the added dimensional stability of a high-strength core.
This wood is often used for decking, furniture and flooring, when durability and high shock resistance are needed. The most common hardwood floor species is red oak and most wood species compare its hardness to that of red oak.
