That being said, maple is a slightly stronger hardwood product than oak. Maple is one of the strongest and most durable natural wood options available. It holds up well resisting significant dents or dings. We'll use the Janka Hardness Scale as reference.
As you may have guessed by now, maple wood is strong! In fact, maple wood is second in hardness only to hickory wood. This makes it a natural choice for many, many different types of flooring. Maple is the second most popular choice for hardwood floors in the United States, just behind Oak.
Maple is less porous than oak, which makes it slightly more susceptible to dents and scratches. Because of its consistency, maple also does not absorb stain as well as oak.
Most experts are of the opinion that the Australian Buloke, which is an ironwood tree, provides the hardest wood in the world, with a Janka hardness rating of 5,060 lbf. Others argue that Quebracho (which translates to 'ax-breaker' in Spanish) is the tree with the hardest wood in the world.
What wood is harder than oak? Hard maple, hickory, olivewood, rosewood, and zebrawood are some of the harder woods. They have higher Janka ratings than oak.
Characteristics of balsa wood make it a unique hardwood albeit, when weight for weight basis is excluded, it is the weakest of all commercial species.
Redwood – It's one of the lightest and most durable woods used for building. It's one of the many reasons why Redwood is such a popular building material. Heartwood redwood grades are the most durable. Cedar – At just 19.7 to 23 pounds per square foot (dry) Cedar is one of the lightest woods.
Of locally available woods, Black Ironwood is typically the strongest type of wood you can find in America. It's found in Florida and has a 3,660 lbf (16,280 N) Janka rating. Other strong North American woods include species of hickory, maples, oaks, walnuts, and beeches.
Oak is generally slightly more expensive than Maple, the cost of the floored depends on the width and length of the floorboards, the grade of the lumber and several other factors.
Pricing: Generally, oak is more expensive than maple. However, each has several varieties whose prices depend on their quality. Average oak prices range from $4.99 to $7.49 per sq. foot while average maple prices can range from $3.74 to $5.75 per sq.
Oaks and maples are both deciduous trees, meaning they lose their foliage in the fall, with new growth coming on in the early spring months. The overall stature of these two trees differs. Oaks tend to have much rougher and gnarled bark than maples.
Sensitive to Humidity and Heat – Like most hardwood varieties, maple is sensitive to extreme humidity and temperature changes. If summer humidity is an issue in your home, this wood isn't suitable as it can expand and contract, warp and split.
With oak you get some added hardness and strength when compared to brown maple. Oak has an active prominent grain. If a smoother look is more your style, brown maple catches points there with its smooth, uniform wood grain.
The Janka scale is used to determine the strength and hardness of various wood species. Hard maple has a hardness rating of roughly 1450, while red oak comes in slightly lower at 1290. Now, if you're careful around your cabinets, this difference in strength may be negligible to you as a user.
The hardest wood is Quebracho with a Janka hardiness rating of 4,570 foot pounds. In comparison, one of the hardest woods we have in North America is Osage orange with a rating of 2,620 foot pounds.
The hardest commercially available hardwood is hickory, and it is five times harder than aspen, one of the “soft” hardwoods. And while this example lists just some of the most popular hardwood species, there are hundreds of varieties, representing the North American hardwood population.
African Blackwood
It is considered as the most expensive wood in the world because not only it is challenging to work with hand or machine tools, its trees are already near-threatened. But as expensive as it may seem, African Blackwood is worth the price.
Walnut is rated at a 1010 on the Janka Hardness Scale. European Oak is a 1360 on the same scale. This means that Oak is more durable than Walnut and will stand up better against constant use and daily wear and tear.
Among the common species of structural lumber, North American elm, oak and maple are prized for their strength in construction. Elm is so strong and water-resistant that it is the preferred timber for wooden bridge abutments and dock pilings.
Because oak trees can take well over one hundred years to grow and live for more than 300 years, their timbers are much stronger, heavier and denser than those of pine trees. Oak is much less prone to scratching or denting.
Pine is a super cheap wood that is actually quite strong for its price. Pine is very common for furniture building, and most of our early builds were made from pine. We still use pine sometimes, especially if we plan to paint the project.
Pine. Pine wood is probably the cheapest wood that you can get on a consumer level, but it is also one of the best wood options when high strength and low cost are needed. Pine wood is sourced from the dozens of different pine species that grow natively around the world.
Grown throughout the southeastern U.S., yellow pine is by far the strongest softwood on our list. It has the highest bending strength & compression strength of any softwood seen throughout North America. And it's high strength-to-weight ratio makes it popular for building trusses and joists.