Wood Flooring Species

Your choice will be partly about look, partly about properties of the wood, and partly about cost. In this chart, common hardwoods are grouped by the way they look: ash is a coarse-grained wood similar to the oaks, maple, birch, and beech are all lighter, finer-grained woods. A few exotic woods, good choices for insets or borders, are on page 6 with the softwoods.

The wear rating tells you how well a wood resists.

Getting a Good Grade
Wood is sorted and sold in different grades. The grade names and criteria depend on the species. Oak flooring grades are shown above. For many species, only the highest grade is usually sold for flooring, but for oak, and sometimes for other species, other grades are available. There's a big difference in appearance between the highest and the lowest grades. There's also a big difference in price. Lower grades can make fine flooring, but be sure to compare the same grade when you're price shopping. dents and stands up to heavy foot traffic. The stability rating refers to how much the wood will expand and contract due to humidity. The less movement, the better.

Actual costs vary across the country, but relative costs are fairly stable.
Availability tells you if you'll have to place a special order for the wood you like.
The characteristics of the wood are not as important for engineered wood flooring. The layers provide stability, so you can make a choice based more on look and cost than on structural properties of the wood.