Dealerships can be tricky to keep comfortable. From service centers and warehouses to the sales floor and management offices, temperatures can vary widely. And with lots of staff to keep happy, well, often no one’s happy — especially the person who pays the utility bills.

Tony Stokes felt the pain. As an IT specialist at Great Plains Kubota, which operates Kubota equipment dealerships, rental centers and offices across Oklahoma, Tony was tasked with finding an industrial thermostat to control the climate in all 10 – and soon to be 12 – locations. In Oklahoma, summer temperatures regularly soar above 100°F, and inside, there are often double-digit differences between, say, the parts department and sales counter.

The traditional thermostats that came standard with the HVAC system just weren’t cutting it anymore, as they required the company’s staff to manually adjust settings every time the business closed and opened. The result? “We were cooling all our buildings down to 65°F/18°C after hours and all day on Sundays and holidays,” Tony said.

In researching a solution, smart residential thermostats like Nest didn’t check all the boxes. Enter ENASTAT. Tony learned about the Canadian thermostat online, showed it to his boss and they decided to test it in three locations. “It looked perfect, and we were sure this was the one that would work for us,” Tony said. Installation was flawless, and the control offered by ENASTAT was a huge upgrade. Three months later, they were ready to buy eight more.

Great Plains Kubota is taking full advantage of ENASTAT’s robust feature set, including zoning, scheduling and permission sharing. Each location has different zones set up to accommodate their individual departments, like the parts department where frequent deliveries mean outside doors opening and closing constantly.

The company’s management team can see what’s happening at all locations, and each of the store managers have control over their own properties. Temperatures automatically adjust after hours to dramatically reduce energy costs.

“As long as the store managers have control, they’re not grumbling – they’re happy,” Tony said.

Beyond greater control and energy savings, the ENASTATs have also alerted Tony to maintenance needs. He recently noted that one of the company’s air conditioners was struggling to cool the space to 70°F. He notified his HVAC tech for a service call.

“We’re really happy with how easy ENASTAT has made everything,” Tony said. “The thermostats are already telling us information we didn’t know, and everyone from company leadership to the store managers have been very pleased with the change.”