My experiences don't correspond to yours. I live in Alaska, not in a very populated place. Nearest grow store is a 10 hour drive in the Summer. I can only get air freight, and it's ex-pen-sive. My electricity regularly browns and multi-hour (sometimes multi-day) outages are monthly to quarterly occurrences. Also, my home has an underground tank for all household water. Since this must delivered when it's -50, it, too, is expensive. The diesel heat, don't even get me started! I grow in a microscopic basement that holds my tent and not much more.
With this in mind, please tell me the specific advantages that RDWC presents over DWC relative to
Rate of nutrient consumption
Electrical use
System set up effort
Access to necessary components
Operation when occasionally stored in unheated facilities
Overall expense of pieces
Rate of nute consumption- instead of a single 5 gal bucket with 3 gallons of water by doing rdwc with another 5 gal bucket right next to it as a control bucket now adds another 3 gallons of water to your total. This allows you a lot more room for error on many different levels to start im gonna start on ph.... In a single bucket setup a plant could eat so much the ph can swing from an acceptable range to something drastic like 6.5+ in no time if they are hungry. In rdwc it would take that same bucket 2x as long for that ph to swing that high. Same goes with the opposite where it doesnt eat at all because it drank all the water and now the 1 gallon left in the bucket is now toxic because its still got 3 gallons worth of food in 1 gallon of water and all this happens in 1 days time as opposed to rdwc where it would take much longer for that drastic of a swing to take place.
Second which also has to do with ph but now because your rdwc you have a control bucket which not only holds extra solution to buffer ph, keep nute and water levels constant but it also gives you options and security. Because this control bucket is here with a water pump inside of it you no longer have to worry about your plants not recieving oxygen in an airpump failure, you also never shock the plants when ph'ing or adding food back because instead of dumping the shit in the actual bucket the plant is in you can dump it into the control bucket and let it gradually work its way in there in a heavily diluted form. You can now also hook up a top off rez to make sure your water levels are constant and further grow with ease. Also because this bucket is here you can hook up a multi meter and know exactly where your ph ppm and water temp is at 24/7. I could go on but im sure you get it.
Electrical use is minimal its probably an extra 25 cents a month to run that water pump 24/7.
Setup effort consists of drilling 4 holes for a 1 plant setup and putting in 2 bulkheads and running a feed and drain line. It should take you about 5 min to do this.
Acess to necessary componets- almost everything you need is at home depot, meijer, or a pet store. You always have the option of ordering shit online.
Unheated facilites are great rdwc loves them i run my water at 60 degrees in the last 3 weeks they dont mind. Same risk as dwc or any other grow method as far as cold weather damage goes.
I say for $25 to $100 you could have a nice rdwc setup depending on the size your going to roll with. The only extra expense is a water pump which is like 20-30 for a bigger one less for a smaller one and the bulkheads which are like $6 for the both and a piece of tubing or 2 which is like $5 max this is for one plant.
