What do you all think of the consumer small snakes?

[Mike6f]

I know pros love their pro tools, but have any of you tried some of the new cheaper powered snakes?

Ryobi has the low end at $70 for the bare tool, and a step up model for $149. Rigid and Milwaukee both had nicer looking models around $200. Easy to see the difference doubling the price for a Super Vee gets you, guessing its the bottom for most of you.

 

[SWong]

You get what you pay for and in this case I would recommend you plan on investing on a high end electric drain snake. I purchased mine when I purchased my home in the late 70's and it has time and time again proven money well spent. I purchased the Milwaukee 0566 at Home Depot for $350 and it has paid for itself 20 fold over the course of almost 45 years. It's practically FREE after the 3rd use considering Roto-Rooter (crooks and thieves run my fly-by-nighters!) any decent plumber will charge over $150 just to walk into your home before services. Google "plumbing forums" and you will see the $70 Ryobi will barely hold up after one or two uses. Don't even consider the hand held manual snakes as they are a waste of money. If you are tight on money try eBay however you have to be careful no purchasing someone else's headache ... bargains can occasionally be found there however. Harbour Freight sells electric powered drain snakes but I would advise against them also since parts are impossible to source. Finally if you desperately need one for a 1 time use consider renting one from Home Depot....at least you have recourse in case the tool fails

 

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[Sylvan]

I bought two very cheap electric snakes from E BAY for under $50 a Ridgid - K 30

I figured use one THROW AWAY as I charge 5 times more what it cost me

The reason I wanted such a small wire and very flexible many of the mansions I wok in were built in the 1920's and have standing tub waste and a lead waste piping and d lead traps

I did not want to do what some ROTO franchise did and the was using a very stiff s sire and the punctured a hole theou the crown of the lead P trap

The K -30 is possibly one of the weakest electric snakes I ever used but it is able to go easily down a basin waste and go paste the trap quite easily

Just be extremely careful using it and hope you don't catch any large amounts of hair or any type of wash cloth as the machine will NOT be able to retract the ire