Aiming to Reduce Our Sheepyard Barn’s Impact

The Suffolk Escape is surrounded by beautiful countryside. We endeavour to keep The Suffolk Escape and our farm a very special tranquil place and where possible we aim to reduce our carbon footprint. As guests and visitors could you please spare a few minutes to read this policy and help us achieve this.

Recycling

As a business we aim to recycle as much as possible. We recycle 100% of all glass and cardboard used by any member of our team. We encourage all guests to separate recyclable materials so that we can recycle on their behalf.  Facilities are available at the barn, such as bottle deposits and separate bins for recycling and other rubbish.

The office uses recycled paper where possible and printing is kept to a minimum, our website has been developed to maximise online communication to lower the volume of printing required.

The Sheepyard Barn

We designed the Sheepyard Barn to be as environmentally friendly and energy efficient as possible to operate.  Here are some of the key features:

• The biomass boiler burns a combination of logs and wood pellets, the latter acting as a back up. We burn logs we harvest from our and our neighbour’s farm using trees that either wind damaged, impacted by disease, or need thinning out.  This helps ensure our heating carbon impact is very low, especially as some of these trees can be seen from the property, it is hard to get a much more sustainable heating source.
• The biomass boiler not only provides all the heating for the underfloor heating but also supplies the domestic hot water, it heats the swimming pool and also the hot tub.
• We have thermostatically highly efficiently controlled under-floor heating in all the rooms including the bathrooms, kitchen and swimming pool.
• We fitted a state-of-the-art Mechanical Heat Recovery Ventilation (MHVC) system which provides pollen filter fresh air into the building and expels the stale air but transfers the heat back into the building via a heat exchanger. This means we do not lose warm air out of the building from trickle vents as the building is nearly airtight. This is a highly efficient way to ventilate a building ensuring a constant supply of fresh clean air but no loss of heat.
• All the windows in the property are triple glazed and thermally broken to ensure minimal heat is transferred out of the building. We also designed the living space and pool room to maximise the benefit of solar gain in the winter months with extra-large 2m high glass panels.
• The whole building was super insulated and created nearly airtight to minimise heat losses.
• Light fittings and bulbs are low energy throughout the building.
• Outside lights are LED bulbs and on Passive infra-red sensors or timers.
• The kitchen appliances used are A graded offering high levels of efficiency.
• We also offer a wood fired oven to offer a highly sustainable way to cook too, we enough guests to use the residual height after cooking to slow cook overnight to save wasting that energy still in the insulated oven.
• The hot tubs have high insulation covers which keep the hot tubs at temperature when they are not being used.

Water Usage

• We have installed our well which supplies the water to the property and for managing the site.
• All of the toilets are dual flush reducing our water consumption and we use environmentally friendly cleaning products.
• The barn is fitted with a shower. On average a shower uses 2/3 less water in comparison to running a traditional shaped bath.
• We have installed efficient baths designed with an oval shape which is both attractive and practical as it uses less water than a more conventional oblong shaped bath. The baths’ eco-friendly insulation properties help to maintain the temperature of the water in the baths for a longer more relaxing bathing experience.
• The site has its own new sewage treatment plant

Local Producers & Suppliers

At The Suffolk Escape we can offer you the most local food possible as we produce eggs here on the farm and we leave you a few in the barn for breakfast, really minimising your food miles! We also endeavour to promote the fine produce of local companies. Where possible we used local traders and suppliers and during the build of the barn, we used mostly Suffolk based companies from the local labour force through to the radiator producers.  We encourage our guests to support local businesses from shops to restaurants and you will find on our website and in the barn there is ample information on local businesses for all your needs.

The Countryside & Wildlife

The Suffolk Escape is set on our mixed arable and livestock farm which is in part of a designated special landscape area. The farm land is part of the Environmental Stewardship Scheme which is primarily to encourage wildlife, native farmland birds and insects. We have dug a new lake and carried out significant planting around the farm which creates an attractive environment for wildlife. We have worked with an ecologist to create a management plan to help ensure we encourage more wildlife including building many bird and bat boxes in hedgerows and trees. On the farm there is a wide range of wildlife including a healthy stock of roe deer, badgers, owls and other hunting birds.

Transport

We encourage our guests to go for walks or explore the local areas on bikes. The barn has a bespoke walking map taking guests on a couple of walks through the farm including stops at the local farm shop, golf club and homeware shop.  We also supply ordnance survey maps for those travelling further afield. The local towns of Ipswich and Hadleigh can be accessed by the regular bus service that runs from the village. The barn has information on lots of local attractions in the surrounding area.

Local Team

The majority of our dedicated team are from our village of Hintlesham, with the remainder of the team 5mins away in neighbouring villages. All are just as passionate and committed to our ethos of protecting our environment and minimising our environmental impact.

Guests Can Help By:

• Turning off taps when you’re brushing your teeth
• Turn off lights as you exit any room
• Follow our recycling guidelines
• Keep windows closed when the heating is on
• Turn the heating down when venturing out for the day
• Never leave electrical appliances on standby
• Use washing machine / dishwasher only for full loads
• Support local businesses where possible

If everybody helps just a little, we can make a bigger impact for Suffolk and our planet

Many thanks,

Andrew, Sarah & the Team