I know that's not answering your question, but have you considered passive hydroponics? - Chilies do very well in passive systems, and it takes up the least amount of space. Also it's the easiest and most reliable system (and the least noisy), the only tricky phase is the root-growing-phase, containers shouldn't be too large at the beginning, or your roots will start to rot, since they're in water for too long. So you should start with smaller containers and smaller-grit hydrocorrels (something like perlite or seramis is great for starting the plants - the small correls water themselves via capillary action, so you can leave the water levels very low)
Once the plants are bigger, they'll use up the water in a larger hydro-pot quick enough to avoid root-rot, all you have to do is water your plants once or twice a week and rinse the hydrocorrels every few weeks.
Another easy way of growing them in passive hydroponics is rockwool. It stores quite a lot of water, but also there's always enough oxygen for the roots. Just use a pot with an open bottom, rockwool and a few hydrocorrels on top. Works like a charm, I've been growing two tomatoes this way as a test:
Here's the system when I started it (on april 29th), there's two blocks of rockwool in there, and some holes in the bottom, so the water can drain easily: (I got rid of the chili in the middle quite early)
And here's how it looks now, all I did was water it once a week (with nutrient solution obviously)
Since the nutrient solution drains easily you can't overwater them, the rockwool holds enough water for at least a week.
