The Price of a Cool Pillow

If you don't already know, I live in Ireland, not exactly a country you'd associate with scorching heat. Because of this, Irish homes have never needed air conditioning, and mine is no different. Air conditioning in an Irish home is still something of a novelty.

The problem is, mother nature is slowly changing the rules. It's still cloudy and mild more often than sunny and warm, but heat is creeping into our summers, and not the pleasant kind. It's the humid, muggy variety that really makes itself felt at night, and increasingly we're getting three or four weeks a year where sleeping becomes genuinely difficult.

So a question has been slowly creeping into my mind, one that would have seemed laughable, borderline ridiculous, even ten years ago: should we install air conditioning? In our Irish home. In Ireland. I felt that was worth repeating.

I've even gone as far as getting quotes from two contractors. I should point out they were both genuinely bemused; it was a domestic installation rather than commercial. A split system, outside condenser, wall-mounted units in the upstairs bedrooms where the heat is worst. The downstairs living spaces stay cool enough on their own, so it's really a problem of nights and bedrooms.

And this is where we hit the problem, $9,995 worth of problems, to be precise. It's a lot of money to spend solving what is, at its core, a three-week-a-year inconvenience. It's back on my radar right now because we've had nearly a week of muggy, sleepless nights, but I know exactly what will happen. The clouds will roll in off the Atlantic, the temperature will drop, and suddenly $9,995 will seem like a lot of money again.

The urgency fades. But it never quite goes away. Maybe it comes down to where I am in life. I'm retired now, and frugality isn't just a habit, it's practically a personality trait at this point.

Every time I run the numbers, the same question stops me: what's a reasonable amount of money to spend solving a three-week problem? I haven't found a satisfying answer yet. But then another sticky night rolls around, and I start doing the math all over again.

And if I ever do pull the trigger, I'll join the rarefied ranks of Irish homes with air conditioning. Maybe that's reason enough to drop $10,000, the bragging rights would be mighty. But my pondering also has a deeper point. I never considered the cost of climate change adaptation in my retirement spending assumptions.

The question has to be asked: what else have I missed? It's a reminder to us all that going into retirement with the bare minimum of a safety margin is not for the fainthearted. A deep reserve to offset future surprises is still the best bet for sleeping well at night… unless you happen to have no air conditioning, that is.

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