Envision the impact of a major league slugger’s hardest swing making contact with a 100-mile-per-hour fastball. Baseball bats are most often made of ash for good reason—they can handle the force of that collision again and again and again, with no discernable visual or structural effect.
Ash is a relatively dense, highly shock-resistant, resilient wood. Its strength relative to its weight is excellent. It also possesses a unique elasticity. These factors make it ideal not only for baseball bats but for archery bows and tool handles as well.
In the context of hardwood flooring, ash has a hardness comparable with red oak, and slightly less than that of maple. Along with its impressive shock resistance, ash will fend off potential dents, dings, and scratches—and just about any other abuse you can imagine—with ease, and provide you with like-new flooring for decades to come.