Thermostats are one of the most important things.. without regulating heat your asking for illness, injury or a horrible death.
Also a cheap Tstat is worthless.. spend the money once and get one with safety shut off and alerts like the Herpstat 2. Its called a (2) because you can run a heat mat, RHP etc on the hot side at 91 degrees and a heat mat, RHP etc on the cool side at 81. If you keep hour home cool like me you will need that as my ambient temps are between 64*68* 24/7- 365.