What Is The Difference Between Hardwood And Softwood Lumber

Lumber grades are a standardized way to judge the quality of a wood or piece of lumber.

What is the difference between hardwood and softwood lumber.

This type of lumber is tough and is not easily. Lumber generally falls into one of two categories. These are trees that lose their leaves and grow more slowly. This is by far the most common misconception people have about wood when they browse the aisles of the local lumber yard or big box building products store.

But the difference between these two types of wood isn t in their name. So what s the difference between these two types. Their slow growth is what makes hardwood a more expensive option. The difference between hardwood and softwood.

The first part of that question is fairly straight forward to answer. The high rate of growth contributes to the abundant supply with most of the processed timber coming from softwoods. As mentioned above the first and most obvious difference between the two is that hardwoods generally have more rigid and hard makeup unlike the softwoods which are softer and more flexible. Hardwood is hard and softwood is soft.

Hardwood timber comes from deciduous trees like beech blackwood oak hickory mahogany maple teak and walnut. Classifying wood as either a hardwood or softwood comes down to its physical structure and makeup and so it is overly simple to think of hardwoods as being hard and durable compared to soft and workable softwoods. This happens to be generally true but there are exceptions such as in the cases of wood from yew trees a softwood that is relatively hard and wood from balsa trees a. However this is not always the case.

That is hardwood isn t necessarily denser than softwood. Hardwood is timber from broad leaved usually deciduous trees that is a tree that looses its leaves each year and belongs to the botanical group angiosperms not all hardwoods are hard though most british species are. Softwood lumber is usually manufactured in lengths that are multiples of two feet about 6 meters and is usually between two and 16 inches thick about five to 40 5 centimeters. Both softwood and hardwood have separate grading scales.

Wood is often classified into two categories including hardwood and softwood. With a clearer understanding of the differences between hardwood and softwood we can move onto the specifics of lumber grading. Below are the top differences between softwood and hardwood lumber. Each of these woods come from a different type of tree.

For instance yew wood is classified as a softwood but is considerably tougher than certain hardwoods. What is hardwood lumber. There is a difference between the dimensions used to refer to the lumber called the nominal dimensions and the actual dimensions. I am often asked what s the difference between hardwood and softwood and will hardwood last longer.