LA MAISON DE LA FONTAINE
Sustainable Living
In daily life at La Maison de la Fontaine we try to:
- Buy things with the least amount of packaging
- Produce the least amount of rubbish possible
- Save all recyclable products
- Use the local recycling centres
- Compost organic waste
- Encourage others to take a new look at conserving and recycling (we have a “green bookshelf”)
- Encourage children to learn how to be less of a nuisance to the environment
In restoring our house (and in our plans to develop our barns) we try to:
- Wherever possible use local materials to renovate - roof tiles, stone, old wood, wood grown locally in managed forests
- Insulate walls, floors and roof spaces to a high level
- Heat the house largely with wood fires and wood stoves, fuelled by wood from our local managed forest
- Maintain the fosse at peak efficiency
In our gardens we try to:
- Use little or no chemical treatments
- Compost organic waste
- Grow organic vegetables
- Plant semi - drought resistant plants and trees
- Collect rainwater and use the well for watering the garden
- Use salt water purification of pool
In shopping for items we cannot produce we try to:
- Purchase locally
- Purchase meat, fish and vegetables of known origin
Our carbon footprint:
We have calculated that as a busy Maison d’Hôtes our average carbon footprint is 5.4 tonnes / person (averaged over all guests) compared with the national average of 6.2 tonnes / person.
To offset this we have planted some 75 trees in the last three years and will continue our tree planting programme in the future.