My 55-year old crackerbox has a natural gas-powered,
wall-mounted heater. It works fine, but has no thermostat.
It also looks a helluva lot better than the new units I've
seen in the stores.

I'd love to add a thermostat, but realize that would require
replacing the valve assembly on the heater, and that might
not be a reasonable thing to try to fit up.

Here are the options I see:

1. Buy a thermostat and valve assembly, and endure
the work of installing it all and getting it working.
(of course, if I did manage it, the heater would
then go bad, and I'd have to get a new one anyway!).

2. Buy a new wall heater and pull the valve and thermostat,
and try to fit them up to the old unit, and store the
rest of the new one for future use.

3. Buy and install a new one, and try to get the shrouds
from the old one to fit on the new one.

Anybody have other ideas, comments?
--
tbl