Eco Wood Guy
Recycled trees for your floor

by T. Ilihia Gionson

Hal Brauner knows his wood—from the forest floor to your floor. Brauner Molding Woodworks in Pana‘ewa takes trees that would otherwise be bulldozed and mills them into beautiful, unique flooring and lumber.

The company doesn’t advertise, but sells about 3,000 board feet of lumber and flooring a week.

“People see it and want it,” Brauner says.

When Brauner arrived on the island from the Pacific Northwest in 1986, he began working at a local ranch that was a big supplier of koa. He was aghast that the ranch was not interested in salvaging other kinds of trees.

Today, Brauner’s mill converts downed and unwanted trees into 150,000 board feet of wood a year. About 80 percent is made into flooring, the remainder into trim or lumber. Most of it stays on this island.

Koa is a staple for the mill, of course. Several types of eucalyptus that are quite common on the island make gorgeous flooring and trim. Kamani is surprisingly workable, and ‘ulu is light and strong. Brauner continually tests new trees. Chocolate albizia, for example, is a relatively available exotic wood. Other types of albizia, including the wildly invasive kind found all over Puna, are used as lumber in other parts of the world. Brauner is experimenting with the viability of the wood in this climate.

Brauner’s most popular product lately has been ironwood. There’s a 10-month wait for ‘ohi‘a products. Though the mill’s annual production is just a drop in the bucket of local lumber demand, “the wood product industry is getting stronger and stronger,” Brauner says.

Several factors prevent the mill from expanding. There’s the prohibitive cost of energy for running the kiln to dry the wood: about $2,000 for a 10,000-foot batch of wood that takes about 20 days to dry.

But the seemingly insurmountable challenge is finding experienced workers. The mill is down to a skeleton crew at the moment. Experienced woodworkers are in high demand.

Even some experienced people find that learning local woods is a whole new ball game.

“It’s not as easy as it looks,” Brauner says.

Brauner makes his living from forest products, so he wisely seeks to preserve resources whenever possible. If there’s a forestry management issue on the island, he is sure to be involved. If a landowner approaches him about harvesting unwanted trees, he’ll try to persuade the landowner to keep as many of the trees on the land as possible.

The mill offers free sawdust to anyone (most use it for composting toilets and the like). Future eco-friendly plans may include a sawdust-powered generator for the tools and kiln.

For more information or to help recycle some sawdust, call Brauner at 959-0013.

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