Flooring of any sort, probably takes more abuse then any other decorating feature of your home. The pets race across the floor to attract attention and bond with the family members and the kids respond with all kinds of toys in tow. And your flooring, well it’s expected to endure all and still add beauty and class to any home environment. Can a Mesquite Hardwood Floor meet this challenge?
Well first it might be important to understand how all lumber is tested for durability. Of course durability in itself can imply many different things from impact resiliency expected in a baseball bat to the environment ability of planking on a wood strip canoe to survive weather issues, but in this case we are being very specific.
Durability of a wood used for a hardwood floor is in reference to its compression, or dent resistance. It is a measure of the amount of force required to push a .444 inch diameter steel ball half way into a piece of wood. It is referred to as the Janka Rating.
In layman’s terms it is a way to measure the hardness of a particular wood. It gives the consumer some idea on how easy it will be to scratch any particular floor while moving furniture around, or corralling the children.
Wood Flooring Hardness Rating: Mesquite Hardwood Flooring?
Mesquite lumber is rather unique in that it is the hardest of all typical North American woods. It has a Janka Rating of 2345, putting it well ahead of the normal species of flooring like red oak and hard maple with an under 1500 Janka wood floor hardness rating. Mequite wood then is almost double in dent resistance.
For the consumer this suggests that a mesquite wood floor will certainly handle the abuse without showing signs of wear as quickly as some of the more traditional woods.
If you would like the more basic consumer test without having to rely of a set of lab generated numbers just lift up a box of hardwood flooring. Mesquite will weigh in at more than three pounds per square foot of three-quarter inch thick hardwood flooring. Then lift up an equivalent box of oak or maple hardwood. The weight should give you some idea. The heavier the wood then obviously the more difficult it will be to damage.
Note that when discussing a wood floor hardness rating, Mequite is ranked harder than all North American species but this is not meant to suggest that it is the hardest wood species on the global flooring marketplace. We can find wood floors like IPE that rank well above 3,000 so keep in mind that this scale is relative!
This is only one of the advantages of Mesquite Wood Flooring and you may wish to research it further to get a more complete understanding of what you have in the way of design options and other appealing wood characteristics that make it a great hardwood flooring to survive the dog, the cat and the kids.
