Considerations That Influence Exotic Hardwood Decisions
Exotic hardwood brings to mind gorgeous species like Brazilian cherry (jatoba), Brazilian teak (cumaru), tigerwood, and Santos mahogany.
The range of exotic hardwoods available offers a dazzling array of choices. But to protect an investment in exotic hardwood flooring, builders and consumers need to understand two wood fundamentals before they choose: the wood’s specific gravity (SG) and its moisture content (MC).
Wood Density
SG is a physical property of wood that serves as an index of its weight. For wood, SG is based on its oven-dry weight and its volume at a stated MC. Many factors influence a wood’s SG. For exotic hardwoods, these include the tree’s genetics, where in the tree the wood came from, and the growing conditions where the tree stood.
Multiply all of that by the variety of places exotic woods come from, and you can see why it pays to research prospective exotic hardwoods thoroughly.
Every wood species has its own properties and characteristics. Softwoods can have very different SGs from hardwoods, but density also varies enough among hardwood species to be worth watching. Black walnut and white ash, for example, differ in SG by roughly 9 percent.
That makes for delightful hardwood diversity, but builders and consumers need to know that these differences occur among exotic species too.
The Exotic Challenge
Brazilian teak, also known as cumaru, is a good example of the challenges of exotic hardwood flooring. It’s popular because it’s extremely hard and durable, so it can be used in both commercial and residential flooring. Its Janka hardness is about 3,330 pounds-force, according to The Wood Database.
However, its high oil content and density can make it difficult to glue, and its natural oils can interfere with some finishes. That makes it harder to know what the right MC readings should be before and after finishing.
Unless they’re well trained in finishing exotic woods like this, builders, consumers, and installers should buy prefinished flooring for this application. Moisture-related problems with this wood could have a big impact on the installer’s schedule, the finishes used, and the long-term performance of the floor.
Moisture Content Diversity
Wood’s MC also has a powerful influence on the success of exotic hardwood flooring installations. Quality can vary widely among exotic flooring products, so consumers have to rely on the manufacturer to produce the flooring well.
Manufacturers that produce mixed exotic engineered flooring products also have the difficult job of managing the different moisture characteristics of each species in the mix. Put simply, mixed-species flooring requires much more attention to equilibrium moisture content (EMC), the moisture level at which wood stops gaining or losing moisture, than single-species flooring.
The good news is that installers can buy accurate wood moisture meters with settings for different species, including exotic hardwoods. The Orion® line of moisture meters has species settings for a wide range of tropical species, so flooring professionals can get correct MC readings. You can find the settings for each species in our species settings and manuals.
Exotic hardwoods are as distinct and diverse as our reasons for choosing them. Different species have different SGs, and density and extractive content can also differ between a tree’s heartwood and sapwood.
So go ahead and choose that exotic floor, but learn these fundamentals first.
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As Sales Manager for Wagner Meters, Ron has more than 35 years of experience with instrumentation and measurement systems in different industries. In previous positions, he has served as Regional Sales Manager, Product and Projects Manager, and Sales Manager for manufacturers involved in measurement instrumentation.
Last updated on October 8th, 2026
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