About
Aventus Eco is a heat pump and solar installation company covering central Scotland, run by founder Sean. A joiner by trade, Sean taught himself renewables from scratch - studying at night, completing industry qualifications, and testing every piece of software on his own house before using it with customers.
The business has grown rapidly over the last two years, with 90% of work coming through referrals. Sean runs an efficient operation where his time goes into customers and install quality, not admin. Spruce handles the workflow that makes that possible, from the initial estimate through to MCS documentation and handover packs.
"If we didn't use software like Spruce, we wouldn't be scaling. You can't scale without having smart processes in place. You just can't keep up with the workload." — Sean, Founder
The Challenge
When Sean first started doing heat pumps, he learnt everything from first principles. Site surveys meant walking around properties with a tape measure, sketching rooms by hand, then calculating heat loss manually room by room. A survey could take two hours, and the calculations another four or five on top.
Too many tools, none of them connected
As the business grew, Sean tried several different software packages for different parts of the process. Each had their strengths in individual areas, but none covered the full workflow. Designs lived in one tool, quotes in another, MCS documentation somewhere else. Getting a proposal to a customer meant stitching information together across systems, and none of it looked consistent when it arrived.
Five to seven enquiries a day, one pair of hands
Sean felt his time was best spent on site - surveying properties, managing installs, and maintaining the customer relationships that drive 90% of his work through referrals. But as enquiries increased to five to seven a day, the admin was swallowing that time. Sean started with longhand calculations, but they weren't something you could build a growing business on.
"You can't scale a company by doing it manually. I don't have physical time to sit down and do longhand calculations for every job."
The Solution
Sean now does his estimates sitting on the customer's sofa. He opens Spruce on his iPad, enters the address, and within ten minutes has an estimated heat loss based on EPC data. As he walks around the property, he adjusts the parameters in real time - wall insulation, window heights, radiator sizes - and the figures update automatically.
From there, the full design, proposal, and MCS documentation all flow from the same data. But one of the part Sean likes the most is the installation packs. For every job, he uploads photos and drone footage, adds notes on pipe runs, materials, and anything the engineers need to watch out for. Spruce generates a PDF that the team receive three days before each job, so they turn up knowing exactly what tools, materials, and access they need.
He's recently started adding video walkthroughs too: after each technical survey, he walks through the property room by room, talking the engineers through what's happening.
"The installers give us feedback - they always say this is the most organised, best pre-planning of a job they’ve ever had. One of the main reasons installers are unhappy is because stuff isn't visible to them, or they're coming up against obstacles they didn't know about. Spruce stops all of that."
The Result
Key outcomes:
Reduced survey and quoting time: Around three hours saved per job
Better enquiry handling: The team handles five to seven enquiries per day
More jobs tracked: Over 100 simultaneously across all stages
The time Sean has got back doesn't go into more admin. It goes into the customer relationships that built his business. Aventus Eco provides very close-touch aftercare to every customer, and that level of service is what drives the 90% referral rate. But it's only possible because the workflow behind it isn't eating up his time.
When MCS auditors visit, Sean opens Spruce on the laptop and walks them through everything - past jobs, policies and procedures, customer sign-off, internal reviews, cancellation forms. The auditors see the detailed documentation for every job on Spruce, and Sean passes without issue.
"When the auditors come along, they literally just go — that's great, brilliant, perfect."
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