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

I moved into an old apartment with a slow-draining tub. I tried all kinds of liquid drain cleaners, including the one that comes with the long, plastic strip that is supposed to fish out hair and clogs -- nothing worked. 10 minutes of working with this tool, though, and now my tub drains just as well as if it were brand new. It easily saved me $80-100 on calling the landlord or a plumber! One small problem, however, is that there are absolutely no instructions included. Not being a plumber myself, I turned to YouTube and found a few very easy to follow tutorials. The basics though are this: 1. Run some hot water 2. For a tub, remove the overflow cap (where water is supposed to go in to prevent you from over-filling the tub) 3. Loosen the screw on this tool that is holding the springy wire in place, then pull out a foot or so of the wire and insert in your tub's overflow hole 4. Keep extending the springy wire and inserting it into the tub's overflow drain until you hit something and can't easily continue feeding the wire. 5. At that point, tighten the screw so that the springy wire can't move around much, grab onto the handle with one hand and use the other hand to spin the canister around. The springy wire will twist around in your pipes and clear the clog. 6. You're not done yet though. Loosen the screw again and continue feeding the wire into the drain hole further, tightening the screw when you hit places that stop you and spinning the canister / drum. I also ran some hot water every once in a while to flush out whatever I cleared up. 7. Turn on the hot water and let that run over the springy wire as you pull it back out (to rinse it off). Be sure to let the wire dry out before feeding it back into the canister for storage. Tip: I found sometimes that after spinning the canister around, the wire felt 'stuck' in the drain (I couldn't push it in further or pull it out). So far, every time that's happened, simply spinning the canister in the opposite direction a few turns has freed up the wire.

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.

This cleared out my drains very well. The process was very discusting but you save a lot of money by doing it yourself. The product doesn't come with any instructions but the usage is rather straight forward after a google search. I think some of the reviewers have also left usage instructions. There are only two things that make me not like this pipe cleaner. The first thing is that you have to let it dry before rewinding it if you don't want it to be moist on the inside. Since this is so long it takes up a lot of space to air dry. The second thing (and possibly the most important) is that the head of the pipe cleaner (the first part to go into the drain) is bigger than the wire. So this might not fit into smaller drains. My drain was the smallest size you could use it on. I had to apply a lot of pressure to get the wire in and out of drain because of the thickness of the head.

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.

I am not sure what I expected from this, since I've never owned a drain snake/auger before, but part of my expectation was that turning the knob on the front would retract the cable into the "barrel". Maybe people who are familiar with the equipment know that it doesn't work that way, but I didn't, and the documentation that came with the device was incredibly poor. It took me quite a while and reading the reviews to understand that it wasn't broken - this is the way it was supposed to work. That said, once I figured that out, it did was it was supposed to do. I have long thick hair which results in a slow draining tub. Over the years I've used everything from Liquid Plumber to pure Red Devil Lye to avoid having to stand in inches of water when I shower. the auger did remove a significant amount of hair clogging the drain and the tub has drained well ever since. I don't like that I have to manually push/stuff the cable back into the barrel once I'm done. It's messy and awkward. But as I said, the item does the job even if the cleanup is ugly, so I give it a solid 3* "It's ok" rating.

Been fighting a slow draining kitchen sink for years in a 60 year old home. Replaced the sink the and re-did the poorly made trap while I was at it and still had issues. A couple weeks ago a little bit of grease clogged it up good and solid due to the cold weather. I tried everything I could think of, including the nasty chemicals and plunging. I ended up weakening my sink basket seal, forcing me to replace it before I gave up and started looking for a better solution (which does not involve some stranger in my house). I discovered several videos on youtube using similar augers and I almost ran to the nearest big orange store to buy a plastic one. I'm glad I waited. This tool is heavily made, and even if you've never used one before, it's easy to use. (don't just force the cable down the drain, you got to spin it in, saves on elbow grease) I have a weird drain pipe layout, and it very easily went the wrong way, but when I got it headed in the right direction and against the clog, I just gave it a spin and then a little tug and the standing water went rushing down the pipe. I worked it a little bit to break it up as much as possible before putting everything back together and running a bunch of hot water and dish soap down the drain. It came back up covered in grease - don't forget gloves, that stuff was nasty. Shocking how quickly this tool worked, glad to have it as a part of my tool kit for future use. Don't hesitate, it's worth it.

Don't expect a professional quality plumber's tool for $25. But what you get is a reasonably well constructed, no frills, effective drain cleaner. I have used it three times for clogged drains that would not clear with Draino. It worked great each time. One of the clogs was about 20 feet down the pipe at an elbow. This tool reached it and cleared it. One word of caution. When you use this, the metal will get wet and will begin to rust over time. Rust will eventually weaken the metal. This leads to the possibility of it breaking off deep within your drain while under tension. This has not happened to me, but I am checking the extent of rust before each use. When the metal looks compromised, I will replace it. In summary, I recommend this as a bargain no-frills tool to clear your drain. Just be sure to check the integrity of the metal before you feed it down your drain.

Other drain augers are twice the price of this or over, making this indeed the biggest bang for your buck. What you sacrifice for the money is a thick handle, trigger, and the ability to be attached to a drill. That, however, definitely does not affect its usefulness. You can still clean drains just as well with this. How you use it: 1. Remove drain stopper (see youtube; when possible make sure to put pan to catch water) 2. Make sure the setscrew at the end is tight enough that the piece it is attached to isn't coming off but isn't bitting down on the cleaner 3. Pull the cleaner out with your hand and feed it into the drain 4. If it stops then first wiggle it a bit and push at different angles. Take note of the drain you are pushing it through (if you see it) to get the right angle. 5. If still stuck then keep the cleaner as far out as you can and feed some extra into the main tub so that there are about 5 inches of the metal cleaner coming from the drain (else just keep pushing it through until it stops again or you got far enough that you think that you may have pushed the clog out) 6. Turn the setscrew so that it bites down on the cleaner. Put your dominant hand on the handle and then turn the handle clockwise with your non-dominant hand and push so that it writhes around the drain. If too much slack then it won't work, so if you think that may be the case then adjust. 7. Once it moved through the clog or bend then unscrew the setscrew and push it all around that area, rotating it here and there and then bring it back. If it ever gets stuck then just make sure that you keep calm and don't pull too hard. Just reasonably pull on it and rotate it counter-clockwise for a while, pushing it back and forth and wiggling it periodically (you might have hooked what you wanted!). 8. If it was just a bend or you just pushed the clog a bit then you won't see anything on the cleaner end (take note of where the bend is). 9. Repeat the process until you think that you might have got it. Then put the sink plug or what-have-you back in and then test it out. Just make sure that you are patient during the process. It isn't as easy as in most Youtube videos, where they just stick the thing in and then pull it out and say "its good now". You might end up fighting it for an hour. I took off a star because I wish the handle was a bit better. (side note: the color of the handle is black and is plastic. The end piece near the setscrew is also black and plastic. This does not affect the functionality)

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 $$$!