Valve theory is trivially demonstrable to be wrong
While this is true of thermostats as such, not all heating controls are thermostats. My parents' house had wall-mounted ovens which worked like a kitchen stove: They put out heat proportional to the setting. As an aside, central heating seems to be rare in Norway; instead each room has its own heating. I'm not sure why this should be so.
Here's an interesting but very old paper - two theories of Heat Control.
It discusses mental models of home heating systems (thermostats) non-experts use.
These models tend to be extremely wrong from theoretical perspective, but surprisingly useful in practice.
The findings are applicable to a much wider range of subjects than just thermostats, and have certain epistemological significance, especially with regard to compartmentalization.