Variations in the grade of hickory hardwood flooring can result in significantly different looking floors. The degree of color variation, from quite white to a reddish brown, and the amount of natural character marks like knots and sap pockets can make the flooring look extremely rustic or quite refined.

When selecting your hickory floor, it is essential that you meet with a professional to understand the grade you are buying. All hickory floors are beautiful but not necessarily perfect for your decorating agenda.

This is partly due to the fact that hickory flooring is somewhat of a mixture of woods, 4 types of “true hickory” and one “pecan hickory”, each species with different degrees of color variation and degree of natural defects.

Flooring Grades:
Hickory hardwood flooring typically comes in a “select” or “select and better” grade with limited knots but can or can not have a lot of color variation depending on the source of the wood and the manufacturer. Some creative flooring manufacturers use the phrase “calico” flooring to demonstrate the variance in color.

Country or Rustic grades are also available, some with added “distress” marks created by the manufacturer and natural worm holes etc. offered up by nature, but you can always guarantee lots of color variation with this species of wood.

Janka Rating: 1820
Hickory hardwood flooring with a Janka rating of 1820 is the hardest Canadian wood species and second hardest in the United States (behind mesquite flooring). In terms of durability, hickory will withstand much of life’s abuse, where other floors will wilt.

Many consumers are familiar red oak flooring. It has been the mainstay in the hardwood industry for a hundred years. The Janka hardness rating is only 1290 for northern red oak, so you can see that hickory represents almost a 50% increase in density over the more common cousin. The higher the number the denser the wood.

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