Star Vickery never used to need an air conditioning unit to stay cool in her home in Halifax. But summers are getting warmer, she says, and since she now works from home, it’s become a must.
But cooling your home can be costly. The unit cost Vickery and her husband over $800, plus ongoing electricity costs.
“We can’t live like this anymore. We need to have some comfort,” Vickery told the Cost of Living.
“It’s not an inconsequential expenditure. I mean, that’s a lot of money.”
And that price is going up. The cost of air conditioning units is expected to rise because of regulatory changes, in keeping with the Montreal Protocol of 1987, an international treaty designed to limit the amount of harmful chemicals going into the atmosphere. Signatories include Canada, the U.S. and the EU.
In 2025, units will use a different kind of refrigerant, R-454B, which releases fewer greenhouse gases …