Looking for opinions on external thermostats

Okay, I just received an email from William's Brewing advertising a Uni-Stat external thermostat.  My question is, who has an opinion on these items?  I live in the Puget Sound area, where summer lasts like 2 months, the humidity goes through the roof, and you sacrifice your children for the cloud gods to return.  Then the clouds do return, the rain starts, and the temps drop back to the 50's, 40's, and the Prozac prescription runs out and you hang yourself from the rafters.  I've lived here for some 14 years, the longest I've ever lived in any one spot, and I'll probably end up being cremated and spread in the local bushes on the side of the road.  :-\

Anyway, what is the general opinion on these.  There are a few Ales I would like to try, but the temps make it a challenge, especially since we keep the house cool to avoid the evil electric bill demon every month.  I figure I can construct a small "closet" with a space heater to maintain a temp in the low 70's for example.  Any thoughts?

You can't go wrong buying a STC1000 from Amazon or EBay. It will come with the temp probe but will have buy a cord, outlet box and outlet. It will control both hot and cold circuit threw two internal 10 amp relays and has a delay for electrical motors. One slight draw back for brewers in the states, it only reads Celsius. But you rarely change settings and Beer Smith can convert it to Fahrenheit.

I like my Johnston A419s.  I only cool with them, but I believe they can be set to heat as well.  Sounds like you might want a dual unit that goes both ways without any annoying change-over. 

I use a Johnson controller for my keg cooler.  Never used it to heat. I have to get the manual out every time I want to adjust things because the menu is less than intuitive, but other than that I have no complaints.

Yeah, we just bought this house a year ago, and we're still trying to figure out an efficient heating system that won't cause us to sell our child on eBay to pay the electric bill.  I just went ahead and ordered the "UNI-STAT II COOLING & HEATING CONTROL" from William's Brewing and planning to set up a small "warm room" in the alcove under the stairs during the 27 months a year (well it seems like it) cold period.  Lagers are great, but being confined to a fine line somewhat stinks.  Here's to warm fermenting rooms and fine Ales!!    8)

Good choice on the II.

The basic model appeared to limit the brewer to fixed temps, many of the "missing" temps were those I use for ales (64 - 69 F). The HEAT/COOL feature is pretty nifty, also. I'm currently running 2 Johnson A419's for my ferm-fridge - one controlling the chest freezer and the other reserved for a heat blanket. I can overlap the set-points from the two controllers and have the heater kick-in just before the freezer shuts off to control the over-shoot as desired.

Not sure about the duty cycle feature on the Uni-Stat, though. I suppose it would work fine for a heating circuit, but I wouldn't want it switching my freezer on and off too quickly (short-cycling, and all that jazz).

Good point on the short cycling. 

I use the Ranco Digital 2 stage controller from Morebeer. It has protection for cycling built in. Fantastic well built, solid construction, and works well with Fermwrap heaters. I run two carboy heaters off mine. Just set the differential to 1 degree, and the heating and cooling to the same temp. Good bye to temp control problems.