'My Retrofit Journey' : Lisa Ann Pasquale

Lisa Ann Pasquale is an architect whose focus is on building performance sustainability through low-energy designs. Throughout lockdown, she retrofitted her own tenement flat. She shares what she learned along the way.

Interview by Emily Benita | Illustration by Alistair Quietsch

How is it possible to combat both the climate crisis and energy price hikes from home? By changing things at home. One way of doing this is a retrofit. By modifying the existing traditional structure, both energy bills and usage can be dramatically slashed. But what is it like to retrofit your own flat… by yourself?

How did you go about beginning such a huge endeavour as retrofitting your whole flat by yourself?

I trained as an architect and a bench joiner, so I’ve always been quite hands-on in terms of building things. I intentionally chose a flat that needed work which was within my capabilities. I still needed tradespeople for electrics and boiler replacement, but the insulation and joinery was mostly done by me. I was frequently advising my clients on ‘the correct way of doing things’,  but there were always pragmatic and financial barriers. I figured I needed to not only take my own advice, but also have the hands-on experience of attempting this myself and experiencing the frustration. By actually being in the thick of it, I could see if I could find better ways of doing things, so I could advise my clients better. 

What was the high point of your retrofit?

My bathroom was freezing due to a very poorly fitted bathroom installed before I bought the flat. For five years, I couldn’t get a hot bath. The water would cool before the tub filled and the room was so cold, my teeth would chatter. So, once I’d finished the insulation, draught-proofing, and installed a new bath in that room, the first time I got in a genuinely steamy-warm bath, I was so excited I nearly cried. I have a bad back, so being able to soak it in a hot bath is bliss. 

Read more: The Retrofit Revolution

What was the low point of your retrofit?

I had to do a lot of stripping out of previous work to do what I wanted and that genuinely got very tedious. I found that there was always twice as much that I needed to strip out than I had anticipated. 

What one piece of practical advice would you give to someone who wants to retrofit their flat?

I would say that you really need to engage a professional who understands the nuances of both energy efficiency and, if it’s a pre-1919 building, the nature of how vapour permeability works in them. Even as a high-level professional in this area, I had to either educate some tradesmen about why I was asking for certain things, or press them quite hard to do it the way I wanted. 

For example, nearly every plumber tried to sell me a boiler that was considerably larger than I needed. Whilst combi boilers are inevitably oversized in small flats, it was still a bit of a fight to get one which was reasonably sized. Most consumers wouldn’t know any better and would just accept the gas engineer’s recommendation. The first engineer suggested a boiler which was literally 11x larger than what I needed for heating. What he was suggesting would have almost completely negated the point of upgrading my heating system. 

What one piece of emotional advice would you give to someone who wants to retrofit their flat?

Start small and do one room at a time. For example, if you’re a ground floor flat like mine, maybe just start with draught-proofing the floor in one room. Feel what a difference it makes, get a sense of how much time and cost is required, and then move onto the next. It’s very easy to bite off more than you can chew with these sorts of projects, especially if you’re living in it whilst the works are underway. This can start to feel overwhelming and spoil the experience of living in a nice, relaxing home. Also, take plenty of breaks during big works. When I got the flat rewired, I ended up sleeping on a friend’s couch to just get a few nights’ break from the mess. When I was doing my bathroom, I spent a couple of nights at a hotel for a warm shower. There’s no need to make construction works a suffer-fest!

You can find out more about Lisa Ann’s work at her website: sixcylinder.wordpress.com

This piece first appeared in Issue 5 of our magazine, a copy of which can be purchased through the link at the top of this article.