General Pipe Cleaners R-25SM Spin Thru Drain Auger with 1/4-Inch by 25-Feet Cable (P-25SM)

I literally received this drain auger tonight and used it right away. I had a major clogged drain in my bathtub. The water would fill up like i had a stopper on the drain. Before i ordered the product, i watched a youtube video on how to use it. It looked pretty simple. I filled the tub to a point where at least the bottom of the tub was covered...maybe a bit more. The water drains super slow. I removed the cover to the overflow which is above the drain. The issue in my situation as you can see from the photo is that there is this bar in the middle. This is not common. Usually there would be no bar. I believe this is the original tub to the house and maybe this is how it was in the past. The screws were so rusted that i couldn't remove the bar. In any case i had to shove the drain auger above the bar to get it in and down the pipe. There are simple instructions included with this product. Please attached photo. It really works if you follow them. In order to get the auger out of the barrel, you have to loosen the screw. See photo with my thumb. I pull out enough of the auger to push it down the pipe easily until it can't go any further. Then i have about 6 inches at the most sticking out of the overflow. At this point you want to tighten the screw. Now you hold onto the handle and turn the knob clockwise while pushing forward on the auger until it goes further down the pipe and you have reached the overflow. Again you don't have to push too too hard but with a little force. Now you loosen the screw again and pull out another 6 inches of auger. Tighten the screw and again while pushing forward you turn the knob clockwise until you get to the overflow. If the auger doesn't move very well, pull out a few inches of the auger from the pipe and try again with turning the knob and pushing forward. You repeat this process until the water drains. It literally took me less than 10 minutes. I was very impressed! Once the clog is cleared, you loosen the screw and slowly pull the auger back into the barrel. It goes back in very easily. As you can see from my last photo, there was A LOT of hair in the pipe. 😊 that is 5 years of accumulation. I also bought the TubShroom hair catcher specifically for bathtub drains which is available on Amazon. It's meant for 1.5 inch diameter pipes. I am going to use that to see how well it will catch future hair. Just FYI...I am a female with some experience in home improvement. But i haven't dealt with plumbing issues.

Rental house, improperly installed basement shower that piped water to a floor drain by the water heater. Bottoms of walls were rotted when we moved in and we soon found out why. Shower would flood the bathroom regularly. Called slumlord, sent plumber. Landlord charged us without notice. Thing flooded again. No way I'm calling the landlord. Ordered this thing. Failed on the first two tries. Went back, shoved it in there as hard as I could. Finally got it about 20 feet in. When you turn the crank, the tip acts like a screw: it drills into a clog and hooks into it. If you hit a block of hair or something, you'll feel a slight resistance. I hit MAJOR resistance, but it wasn't hard like metal. It was like catching a big fish. I had to pull MUCH harder to get it out this time. Know what I found? A BALLED UP RAG DOWN THE FREAKING DRAIN. 20 FEET BEYOND THE HOLE IN THE FLOOR. Shower runs like a dream now. No more sharing the second bathroom. So grateful for this simple, killer tool. Fantastic bargain for perfect results and peace of mind. I covered the line with tool/gun spray that's supposed to prevent corrosion, as per the suggestion of another reviewer. Too soon to say how well it works, but it seems sensible. I want this thing to last as long as possible.

I bought this for my bathtub because I had an issue with standing water/slow drain. It is super easy to use. I think there are instructions included, but since I youtubed how to do it, I guess I didn't find them that helpful. It's really simple to use tho. The snake is really long and I imagine will work for most people for most projects. The material is substantial. It doesn't seem filmsy at all: it's both flexible and stiff at the same time if that makes sense. It's flexible enough to work it's way down the pipe but not so much that it'll just fold in on itself like other drain thingies. Does that make sense? Anyway, turns out that I had a problem with the lever thingie that open/closes the hole to the pipe in my tub. There's this weight thingie that attaches to a metal lever that raises and lowers when you open/close the drain. Turns out that this weight was always half closed which accounted for the slow draining. Once I adjusted the length of the lever & weight thingie, my slow drain problem was solved. But, I did stick the snake through the tubes and it seemed to work well enough.

Really solid. This is my first time using a mechanical drain snake... I'm glad I didn't use a motorized one, that seems like asking for chaos. This little guy you can control. The snake is not tiny, barely fit in my drain (between the crosshairs at the top of the bathtub drain). A couple notes for the newbie like me: If it's a tight fit in to the drain, you can screw it in, gently turning the wheel clockwise (just like you'd put a set of keys on a ring). You can also remove the bathtub overflow plate and go down that way-- though, at least on mine, there's a little valve down there that you have to coax into passing. Navigating around the joint can be disheartening. For my tub, feeding the snake in, it got stuck at about 3 ft, then again at about 6 ft, and then again at about 10 ft. Each time I had to gently push, and then turn the wheel clockwise, then push again. The final turn was very hard to make (but my clog was below it!)... I put dish detergent in the water to make thing slippery and then kept coaxing it... then the snake fed in all the way to 25ft. Lastly, be aware the snake is not attached to the body! I almost dropped the whole 25ft. down the drain! It is easily fed back in to the wheel, though, and the process of removal is the same thing, but in reverse (counterclockwise when you get stuck), and goes much faster. It worked on a very stubborn clog!

This drain cleaner is well made and best of all its made in the USA! I purchased this cleaner for use in a downspout that occasionally needs to be unplugged. It makes climbing up to the roof a thing of the past. It works well for this purpose. The construction is solid and slightly on the heavy side. It will not break under the heaviest uses and should last a long time. Having the wire cleaner roll into the covered metal case is a benefit in keeping the storage area clean. It stores well. My only CON is the flimsy flat plastic handle. Its thin and not ergonomically easy to grasp. Almost all the weight of this product is in the roller casing. I would have given this pipe cleaner five stars but because of the flimsy handle I gave it only three. I suggest the manufactures bulk up the plastic handle with finger grips to allow for firm grips when using the device.

Wow! I am so broke right now, there is no way I could afford another plumber visit. I live in an older home with a very curvy pipe out of the kitchen sink and if you sneeze wrong it starts to build clog and about every year I have to hire someone to take it apart and snake it, even though I NEVER use the disposal or put any grease down there. So this time when it clogged I decided to buy this instead. The only way I could get in the drain was way at the top before the trap (or I'd have to unglue pipes, which I do not know how to do. So I went in right under the sink by loosening the cinch the last plumber put there......and WOW! The snake went down and around and cleared it all out! Cinched it up again and the water goes out with a slurp! This cost me only $18.74 on Prime. It is extremely heavy duty and all steel, both the cable and the container. You don't need to hook it to a drill or anything. Just push it down to the clog and then turn the handle so it works it around. FABULOUS! I am going to be keeping this in with my tools for the future for sure! Not bad for an old lady if I do say so myself!

The wonders of the internet. My lawn drain clogged up in the last storm and my backyard flooded. I had to find fix it before the next storm. It's raining this Sunday. Google introduced me to the drain auger, so I bought this one. What a good choice. It's manual. I don't have to use any machinery, and it's oh so easy. Just put it down the drain, tighten a screw, and turn the wheel. Viola! I was able to dig out a bunch of roots. If only it were longer than 25 feet, I know I could remove so much more. Still, the drain runs much better now. I noticed some people complaining that the coil comes out at the end of the line. Yes it does. I just pushed it back in. That's not hard, folks. No muscle needed. It's a good thing it comes all the way out. I took it out, sprayed it clean with a garden hose, and let it dry before putting it back together.

It did the job. Not going to lie that this tool did require effort. Get a nice, clean mat to position inside your tub so that you can get nice and comfortable. As you feed the snake through the overflow, do so gradually until you cannot feed anymore cable. Tighten the screw on the auger so that the cable is set in place. Make sure that there is about 6 inches of cable between you and the overflow, and then rotate the handle on the tool clockwise to begin spinning the snake around. Do this for a good amount of time so that the snake will loosen any blockage. Then untighten the screw so that you can feed more cable and penetrate deeper into the the pipe to continue to clear out gunk. Now, as you do this, turn on some warm water so that whatever blockage is in your drain pipe will be easier to be broken apart by the snake. You do not have to keep the water running the entire time that you use the tool, this is just to optimize the use of the auger to do its job. It also might help to flush the toilet as I believe these pipes are connected and the flow of water helps to make the blockage more pliable to be broken apart by the snake for proper drainage. Doing this should allow you to continue to feed more cable through the overflow to continue to clear out your pipe. Take your time with this tool. Continue to rotate the auger. Feed in more cable after you rotate it for a timeframe. If at some point the snake gets stuck, do not fret. This happened to me. First, try rotating the auger counter-clockwise to help dislodge the snake wherever it's stuck. Do this for some time. If that doesn't work, carefully pull the cable upwards from the overflow. This is what I had to do, and it gradually came out. I made sure to apply careful force when pulling, enough force to pull the cable out but not to damage anything or break the cable. After all this, my drain was nice and clear. No more slow drainage. I was pleasantly surprised by this inexpensive tool. I am not a plumber. But I watched quite a few videos as well as read the reviews for this tool to find methods that worked. Needless to say, these techniques worked for me.

Instead of having to pay a lot of money fo4 a plumber, I got this, watched the video and followed the steps and it fixed the clogged bath tub and bathroom sink

I used it in my kitchen, bathroom and basement sinks and bathtubs. Its cable is thin enough to fit in household pipes with bends and the spring head picks up hair and cleared the pipes. You may need a bigger one for toilets. Needs a lot of turning and pushing the cable into the pipes. It is long enough for most house hold pipes. I am going to use it in another house that the bathtub has a very slow drain and shorter snake have not been effective. I am hoping this is long enough to clear the problem (saves on cutting the walls to get to the drain pipe).

Better product out there. Used it once. It made alot of scratches and didnt work. Went straight to the garbage.

The R255M saved me a ton of money. The plumber had wanted to charge me $700 for a power flush that turned out to be unnecessary. Just follow the instructions that come with the product. It's important to recognize the difference between your blockage and corners in the pipe. My particular blockage felt mushy. Once you've identified the blockage, you work the corkscrew gently through it back and forth. In my case the job was not difficult.

Our tub was backed up for almost a week...draining sloooowwwly overnight each night. After plunging for hours and days, ordered this Sunday evening, and it was here Monday morning. SUCCESS!! Very sturdy, excellent price, and did the job. Would recommend watching a youtube video or two before use. SLOW AND STEADY is key. Can't believe what I pulled up and out of drain. If snake gets stuck on the way out, turn in reverse, or counter clockwise while tugging gently. Just go nice and slow and steady. Amazing product...saved hundreds of $$$!