The Coal-Trol is a set and forget affair. No tweaking required unless you change coal suppliers. Once the min and max fire are set it doesn't matter if it is 100 out or -30 the Coal-Trol will regulate the stove with no intervention from the operator. A Coal-Trol can be added at any time, however on the Keystoker it takes a little more work since the stokewr, convection fan and combustion blower are hard wiredtraderfjp wrote:Try the thermostat you have first and see how it works. There are high and low settings for the Coaltrol that has to be tweaked depending on the weather too.
IMO you should use the Tstat for a season (don't worry you will be tweaking feed rates and trying to get the blower running the right speed for air distribution), that way you will appreciate the Coal-Trol when you buy one.
On the subkect of location, it is hard to give advice without actually looking at the house, but unless the pipes might freeze you will use less coal to install it in the living space as has been suggested.
Keep us posted on your progress.