Aside from the obligatory knotty pine walls, I'm trying to figure out the best choice of flooring using wood from my camp. I've narrowed it down to two trees that I have enough of to do the job, tamarack and yellow birch. I'm wondering, other than appearance alone, if one is more suited to use as a floor? I gather the hardness and ability to absorb stain or poly uniformly are the main factors? I love the look of both and frankly could see either as my floor.
Tamarack:
(http://www.smileylumber.com/TamarackFlooring.jpg)
(http://www.pawbrandflooring.com/assets/pics/tamarack1.jpg)
Birch:
(http://www.bamboofloorings.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Birch-Wood-Flooring2.jpg)
(http://www.timberknee.com/images/howlandBIRCHlarge.jpg)
Don't know the answer but I love the Tamarack and have some myself...might make a nice floor!
I can't give very exact answers. I am no wood worker and don't know these specific trees well. Tamarack is a conifer (softwood) and birch is deciduous (hardwood). I don't know the exact hardness of either species. Softwoods tend to shrink/expand less with humidity than hardwoods and you might be able to get away with larger floor boards. (less work) I don't think either tree is part of a climax forest succession, but I think tamarack does worse with competition. Birch has a higher BTU as firewood than tamarack.
For wear and tear yellow or sweet birch is probably a better choice, you will lose more during drying and cuss it while installing but it ranks up there with beech and hickory for toughness. Main downsides I see are greater movement and powderpost beetles really like it.
From the "Wood Handbook" (A great free download from the US Forest Products Labs)
Birch;
Specific Gravity @12% (density) .62
Modulus of Elasticity (stiffness) 2.01 x 10^6 psi
Side Hardness perp to grain 1260 lbs (Force req'd to embed a .444" steel ball to half its depth)
Tamarack
SG=.53
E=1.54
hardness=590
Another good resource just popped to mind;
http://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/research/centers/woodanatomy/index.php
Look on the right sidebar on that page, click on the "north American Hardwoods" and "North American Softwoods" links, then click on species you are interested in for their tech sheets. All the goods on one page.
Here's Birch;
http://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/TechSheets/HardwoodNA/htmlDocs/betula1.html
Tamarack
http://www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/TechSheets/SoftwoodNA/htmlDocs/larixlarcin.html
Note shrinkage numbers for each @6%
I think they both look nice.
That said, from my experience the darker the wood the more apparent the traffic patterns are. A lighter wood appears to me to hold up better over time. Also, Birch being a hardwood seems it would hold up over time better as well, but I do not know enough to say with certainty because I know nothing of the properties of Tamarack other than it is dense softwood.
I would go with either if they were available to me, but if I had to choose between the two, I would likely opt for Birch.
Other than it being harder to work with after dry I would chose the birch. With the knotty pine on the walls I think the lighter birch would be a nice offset.
I had a chance to see the tamarack floor in my builders office, and the birch flooring (and ceiling) in my neighbor's house. The tamarack is very nice, but has more orange to reddish overtones. The birch was lighter, as nysono said, and had a buttery finish with more than enough variation in color and grain to be dramatic. I'm leaning towards the birch for its looks, and from what's been said here, it's hardness. At least of the first floor. Who says the second floor can't be tamarack, right?