Flooring made from a wood with a high Janka rating is attractive due to its durability and sometimes exotic colors. It is a good idea to know the hardness of the wood you’re going to be installing in the home because the species differ greatly as you move up and down the Janka hardness scale.

Balsa, for instance, is a wood used readily in model airplanes and table tennis paddles because of its lightweight, stiff makeup. Balsa is the softest of all the trade woods measured by the Janka hardness scale. Lignum vita is the hardest. It will sink easily in water. It also hard to work with, hard to cut, and hard to nail. For woods with this much hardness there are precautions that you much take. You might end up deciding to glue down your flooring instead of using nails, which means you also have to look into the types of glues available for that wood. And if you do choose to nail the flooring down, you’ll most likely have to pre-drill the nail holes. It may seem as if I’m going down a list of reasons why not to have high Janka rated hardwood flooring installed, but that isn’t my intention. It’s important that every homeowner knows some of the extra steps that may be involved.

Wood hardness is a very important issue to keep in mind when deciding on what types of wood species to have installed in your home. If you have a room that sees a lot of foot traffic you should be interested in flooring that will stand up to multiple impacts. When choosing hardwood flooring you really need to do just as much research as you would when you’re buying a car or a home. Knowledge is power and it will help you build a better home.