When I came home from work today and stepped inside my house, it was as if I sat down on the face of the sun. The thermostat read 86 degrees, and once again, I asked myself, "Why the hell don't I have central air?"

I ask myself this only a few times each summer, the days in which two ceiling fans, three window units and running the furnace's fan to blow cool air from the basement just doesn't cut it.

It's times like this when I will spend anything to beat the heat.

And then, before I pick up the phone to call the nearest HVAC guy, it cools down a little and I regain my sanity. There are, after all, just a few unbearably hot summer days in Milwaukee.

Right?

Maybe I'm not thinking clearly due to the heat, so I'll lean on you, readers of OnMilwaukee.com, for some sage advice.

Here are the pertinent details: I do have forced air heat already, but my furnace, once top-of-the-line in the mid '80s, is surely at the end of its life. I can't sleep in this humid, blazing-hot weather. My wife, however, is always cold (and is actually comfortable in this weather) and will not likely turn on the A/C even once per summer. And finally, cranking three window units in an 1,800 square foot house causes my electric bills to skyrocket during this weather. I truly don't know the value proposition of installing central air, and if I would need to replace my aging furnace to get it up and running.

So I'm asking you, should I take the plunge and buy A/C? Or should I hang out in the basement during these dog days, suck it up and deal? If I do get A/C, who should I hire to install it? And how much is this going to set me back?

My guess is that central air is a lot like a DVR. Once you have it, you don't know how you lived without it.

Unless that's just the heat talking. Is this just a huge investment I can live without?