I now have a confirmed start date, kind of, for the radiation therapy. It is to start the week beginning the 26th of February, but not necessarily on the Monday. The start day will be confirmed either when I have the measurements done (on Tuesday 13th), or subsequently. There is only one stereotactic radiation machine in the Epworth system, at Richmond. (No doubt it cost a bomb, so the most needs to be gotten out of it.) I can only think they need to optimally schedule that machine, and so they are giving themselves, perhaps, time to reset it for patients with different requirements, and a bit of wriggle room in general.

Anyway, it is good to know approximately when things are going to start. I will see how the tram goes on Tuesday for getting in there.  It will be possible to be refunded the car parking charges for the therapy itself, but not for the measurement session, which is only a one-off. At least we have a break from the heat! It was quite cool last night.

I have been a bit deep in a spreadsheet, trying to figure out what combinations of heating and cooling would be least expensive to run. We have an evaporative cooling system, which is about 16 years old, and gas ducted heating, probably of similar vintage. (I will find this out from the manufacturer tomorrow.) The former needs a service, but it is probably more cost efficient to replace it. Assuming the heater is also in need of replacing, I have worked out that the cheapest thing (in terms of running costs) would be a reverse cycle ducted system. This has the virtue of replacing two not very good systems with a single one that would (I hope) both work better and be cheaper to run. The one-that-does-double-duty advantage is reflected in the higher purchase price. Electricity prices are likely to rise, shortening the payback period. Sustainability Victoria and Whirlpool have some useful data and discussions that I drew on in pondering these matters.

The cons? At present we have ceiling ducts for the cooling and floor vents for the heating. The reverse cycle would use the ceiling ducts, which of course wouldn’t work so well for heating. So we would have to supplement the heating with a panel radiator. We use this at present, however, so we would not be worse off. The ceiling ducts themselves would also probably need to be replaced. (Evaporative cooling ducts are much bigger than those used in refrigerative air conditioning, and I am assuming this also applies to reverse cycle.) However, having airtight ducting is apparently very important, and the old ones are probably anything but. Will the vent covers be too big? These and other pressing questions will have to be confirmed.