Product review (5 stars): wow....that was easy....and it really worked.
Well....it's the coming winter and i was checking out all our appliances to make sure everything was in good order and i asked myself if the duct behind the dryer had ever been checked out.  we bought the house used and have been in it now for 4 years and i have never cleaned it.  Had the previous owner?  who knows?

Anyway, we pulled the dryer forward and uncoupled the duct.  A quick look made me ask, "How is this thing working?", it looked totally clogged.

So we went to Amazon and took a look and came across this tool...and it seemed pretty straight forward and simple and well priced and had good reviews.  So we ordered it on our prime account and it showed up the next day.  the following Saturday morning, after breakfast, my daughter and i took the duct cleaning kit, got our vacuum cleaner and cordless drill and headed down to the laundry room for a little cleaning party.

Well, i must say, i was flabbergasted about the amount of material we removed from the duct....which for us was approximately a 10 foot run - short horizontals and an 8 foot vertical through a flexible aluminum duct.  we could not get the outside vent cover off so we went in from the inside.  initially we did a section, backed it out, cleaned up the waste and repeated adding sections to the snake.  after about 15 backs and forths we made it all the way through and then did another 5 backs and forths to make sure it was really clean.  it was amazing how easily the brush went through on the final pass compared to how hard it was working to clear the initial bolus of lint.

so a couple observations.  first, i can't imagine how this tool could work without using a drill (we used a cordless) unless you only had a very short run.  there is nothing in this tool that really allows it to be turned by hand....  so you have to have the drill.  second, a second pair of hands really makes a difference when you have a long run to manage the snake and all the back and forth, third, if you are using a cordless drill, have your battery fully charged...we had to take a break to do a re-charge...which was not a big deal.  but for a long run....it easy to go through a battery ;and fourth ...have a garbage bag handy and clean out the vacuum cleaner as it fills with lint..  we had to dump the contents of the vacuum cleaner several times during this process....we removed about a tall kitchen bag's worth of lint from the duct.

anyway....that errand is done, the duct is clean and i am pleased as punch.  an easy and a fun father-daughter project.  saved a couple hundred bucks compared to asking a 'professional' to do it i suspect.