Winter tyres

We had the first frost a few weeks back, but it's not been that cold.  This week the temperatures have dropped and the trend is getting colder.
Snow tyres on and chains in the boot.

New data cable

A cat 5 cable I pulled in alongside the main supply cable 3 years ago has been losing cores over the years.  I'm now down to 4 cores, 2 having failed together last week.  It was supposed to be underground grade, but the sheath was weak and I'm pretty sure it was torn in places when I pulled it in. I use this cable to monitor water usage (70m supply pipe so I want to make sure it's intact) electricity use, and to monitor the letter box.

New build properties require a number of underground ducts from the house to the road.  These are really useful when it comes time to change a cable.
For telecoms use, 2 ducts are laid.  1 has the phone line, and the spare has now got a new data cable, a cheap CCA cat 5.  I checked the sheath and its intact, put plenty of lubricant in the duct and the first few metres that popped out the other end are undamaged.  I didn't pull in another draw wire, as these invariably wrap around the pulled cable and make pulling in a second cable more prone to damage both, plus extra stress on the new cable.

I havent removed the dodgy cable, as it will be wrapped around the heavy supply cable in another duct, and would likely just snap.

I have another duct to the gates which has the dodgy cat 5 cable in, but this was pulled in with the power cable so very little stress.  So far.