So I have confirmed something I have suspected for a while. If you read through the whole thread you've probably seen that I have to have water to the buckets every couple days, to keep the feed at a consistent see that flows into the PVC neck. Anyway it is because the bucket leaks... A little of the leakage is coming from the seams where the silicon is started to degrade. But most of it is spillover leaking out of PVC feeder neck part... I'm not totally sure how to remedy this but I am going to work on it. If I can stop the leakage maybe I can have an FF set up where you can actually leave the birds unattended if you have to go away over the weekend...
I think I may have to go with the design that is more like those pet water dispensers ( the ones that look a little like water coolers ). Alternatively I still haven't tried poking holes in the lids to cut down on the pressure from the buildup of the gases the bacteria are producing... Maybe alleviating some of this pressure would stop the leakage I'm not sure. I think I'll try that right now.
As for dealing with the winter temperatures I think I said that up to -10°C the feeders still work pretty well, below that they freeze so instead of spending money on heated bases I have just been swapping out buckets each day and when it gets really cold -30°C I feed them in a pan...
I still think this feeding system could work really well year round if you live in a warmer climate.