Review on Cobra 87200 Snake-It Drain Clearing Power Drum Auger, 1/4-Inch by 20-Foot - Free-Standing by Damian Lousteau

We have an old house with a bunch of drain pipes that are starting to leak so we have this to pump them all up. We did about 10 sinks/toilets before the unit fell apart. We literally followed the instructions and used a variable speed drill with low speeds. It is best to have one person hold the drill and drum, the other use one hand to insert the cord into the duct and the other control the speed of the drill. That way, if something goes wrong (e.g. gets stuck) you can immediately release the drill's trigger before it keeps tipping over. Once he buckles it's game over and he LOVES buckles. If you can somehow magically stop it from twisting its own cord, it works great! However, when going through a tight turn and the cable becomes difficult to turn, especially when most of the cable is "in the tube" meaning the drum is half full or less, it tends to kink, especially for twisting INSIDE THE DRUM. . In this case you cannot pull another cable out of the drum, even though you know that there are more cables. Flip the drill bit and back it off a bit and you should be able to get the twisted mess out of the drum. Then try for 5-10 minutes with pliers to fix the kink by straightening the cable as much as possible (which by the way is very difficult even with a lot of practice), but you will never get a perfect result. , so that it bends again at this point the next time it drains. The emptier the drum/the more cable in the pipe, the more likely it is to twist inside the drum. After struggling with this product for hours, I was able to complete about 10 drains, most of which only used 10 feet of cord because it kept kinking at the 10 foot mark and getting it through the kinks was getting harder and harder into the drain. , even though we had three hands holding and guiding the cable as it led into the sewer. Then suddenly on drain #10 the metal pin that you insert into the drill bit came loose from the drum so the drill bit spins but the drum doesn't. Game over. I admit that I threw this product in the trash with great pleasure. The only people I would recommend this product to are those with straight drains with no kinks. For them, the product will work very well. For everyone else - no way! Interestingly, Cobra has discontinued this product and replaced it with a different system. Perhaps the new system is less prone to kink?