Monument General Wire Spring DS 15 15ft. Drill Snake - MON3351G

We had 2 blocked soak away pipes that led away from our house down pipes.After reading the reviews was happy to take a chance on this item.We treated it with respect as quite a few people said it broke easily.We used a low drill speed , I was in control of the drill and my wife was feeding it into the drain pipe. Obviously it did snag a few times but we just eased it back and tried again .It was not quite long enough to reach to the end of our pipe, so I cobbled up a couple of old fencing wires to make it 4 feet longer.We realised this would be very demanding on the snake but we were desperate and willing to take a chance with it.All went very well.We cleared BOTH of our soak away pipes and NOTHING broke at all.Both soak always are now running freely.Very pleased with our purchase.WOULD RECCOMEND this item.But do treat it with care.Again, it did not break on us.Thank you.

The drill snake eventually did the job on my third try over a couple of weeks. This was to clear a very problematic sink where over 20 years limescale had built up in the external pipework until water-flow went down to a trickle and then blocked. I had tried a non-drill snake which was a waste of time as moving built up limescale needs more power than manually turning a wire can ever provide. In the end I used around six feet of length down the pipe.As other reviewers have mentioned the drill bit can easily be snapped off the end of the wire if excessive force is used. This happened half a dozen times during my use, meaning I had to carefully re-screw it back on, using the two phillips head screws which go through the plastic. I also experienced the problem of the cable knotting itself up when hitting resistance, as can be seen in my photo, keeping the unused cable in a large loop using some duck tape solved this for me.Due to the cable catching, I also had to trim some of the plastic sheath and removed the (seemingly pointless) extra black plastic end holders. After a couple of uses the wire has a kink in it and is rusting. As it is held in a plastic sheath, there is no way of rinsing it off and wiping it dry inside, or oiling it, after use. I would hazard a guess that this means it can only be effectively used a handful of times before having to be thrown away.I am delighted the snake did the job, however the drill bit coming off was irritating, I nearly gave up once the cable was knotting itself up during use when it was first hitting the real blockage, and the bit being all plastic seems flimsy. The plastic bit is tempting fate if the user has to re-screw it back on, as it is easy to damage if the holding screws are forced. If this were redesigned to keep a low price but with an all-metal bit with small bolts rather than screws holding it on, I would be more enthusiastic.

I bought this to try and unblock some external rainwater drains that had become blocked with soil and roots. Perhaps my requirements were too excessive - I couldn't really work out if this was suitable for external work, but couldn't find anything more heavy duty. I was pleasantly surprised - it worked far better than I expected and was making good (if slightly slow) progress. However, when it failed, it failed catastrophically - possibly down to user error. The drill end bit into something causing the 'clutch' mechanism to simply come off (I had tightened the screws well enough). Not necessarily a bad thing, but in my haste to get going again I pulled the snake from the drain before re-attaching to the clutch. Unfortunately, this meant that the spring was able to slip down into the blue sheath, leaving the 'drill' end hanging out by just over a foot. No amount of cajolling could re-sheath the spring correctly so I was forced to cut the blue sheath away from end that had been pulled inside in order to be able to re-attach the clutch. Sure enough, as soon as I tried using it again the unsheathed drill end irrevocably bent itself and the thing was unusable. Although this is my fault, throughout the process I couldn't help but wish the whole thing was more heavy duty - I always had the fear that it was one step from failure. The concept is great, however, and I have no doubt that this is fantastic for smaller jobs.

Took a chance on mostly favourable reviews - big mistake! Despite following instructions, after only a few minutes of use,the clutch mechanism fell apart.Or rather the steel spindle that inserts into the drill chuck ripped out of the clutch plastic housing! The clutch itself failed to work when the boring head met an obstruction.The weakest point then is the metal to plastic interface- effectively the spindle being a small hexagonal bolt with its (small) head moulded into the end of the plastic clutch housing - poor engineering. This clutch is the weak point of an otherwise reasonably good quality product.I would suggest that this snake is only to be used on the lightest blockage in kitchen/bathroom waste pipes,where it is probably more effective and then might merit more stars. Avoid using to try to clear more impacted debris - in drain pipes for example.When using a power drill ensure the speed is VERY slow,little more than if turning by hand - and if the power drill has its own clutch set it to operate at a light load.The snake clutch might then survive!Caveat Emptor

we have had a blocked pipe for months that we have to keep unblocking manually every few days and was a really slow pipe - this blasted thought the block in minutes and now we have actually pipes that work! Thank you! worth every penny!

Not bad for the price.Made of good quality materials.A good length to get to those hard to reach spots.