About
RES Devon is a renewables installer based in Devon, covering heat pumps, solar PV, battery storage, biomass, MVHR and underfloor heating. The company has been trading for 20 years, and its first MCS heat pump installation was in 2006.
Adam, a Partner and Project Manager who has been with RES Devon for 15 years, runs MCS compliance for the business. RES Devon recently passed its annual MCS audit with zero non-conformities, with the audit time itself being reduced 25%. The audit was the outcome of a wider workflow shift the company had made over the previous year, moving the day-to-day running of its installations onto Spruce.
"We'd been using Easy MCS. It was fine. Until you step away and see something new, you realise you'll be left behind."
The Challenge
A mix of separate tools
Before Spruce, RES Devon ran its quoting and design workflow from a mix of separate tools. EPCs, estate agent plans, and a quoting software package were all fed into mail-merge documents that became the final quote. Each estimate meant pulling property data from several sources, working through the quoting software to find the right heat pump specification, and assembling the customer-facing document by hand.
The team was busy and the work was getting done, so the inefficiency wasn't visible from inside the day-to-day. As Adam puts it, RES Devon didn't realise how much time was being wasted until they stepped away and looked properly.
MCS compliance pressure
The software RES Devon had been using for MCS work was the bigger problem. Adam was running the company's MCS accreditation, and the software was making it harder, not easier, to stay compliant. Customer-facing paperwork was slow to produce and didn't always carry the right information. The annual MCS audit was a two-day process that ate into real prep time on top of the day job.
"We were using the Easy MCS and we just realised we weren't being compliant. We were struggling to be compliant in terms of MCS paperwork, getting information out to customers in decent time, and giving the correct information."
The Solution
Estimates in 10 minutes
The first change RES Devon noticed was the speed of the estimate. A customer phones in with basic property details. Adam pulls the property data into Spruce, generates a heat pump specification and sends an accurate estimate back. The whole thing now takes around 10 minutes, where the same process used to take 2-3 hours of pulling information from separate places and stitching it together.
The accuracy is high enough that the final design price typically comes out close to the estimate. That gives Adam time to do the parts of the job that actually need him: making sure compliance is correct, spending time with customers who need extra attention, and supporting the installation team.
"Being able to send an estimate so quickly and accurately means I can spend my time making sure compliance is correct. I can spend time with customers. I can spend my time with the installation team.”
A cleaner MCS audit
The MCS audit improvement followed naturally. With paperwork generated through Spruce as part of their daily workflow, the MCS was already in order by the time of the audit. Compliance stopped being a separate task that ran alongside the work.
RES Devon recently passed its annual MCS audit with zero non-conformities, and cut the audit time from two days to a day and a half in the process.
The Results
Key outcomes:
Cut estimate time: 2-3 hours → 10 minutes per estimate
Faster heat loss: Under an hour for a decent-sized property
Cleaner MCS audit: 2 days → 1.5 days, zero non-conformities
Time saved per installation: Around 6-8 hours per job
Consistent customer documents: One co-branded PDF from initial estimate through to handover
The time freed up has gone back into the work that actually counts. Adam spends more time with customers who need extra attention, works more closely with the installation team, and stays on top of compliance. The wider effect is that RES Devon now runs a single workflow from initial contact through to handover, rather than juggling separate tools at each stage.
"Within a week of using it, we knew it was worthwhile. It pays for itself in the time and the professionalism. There's nothing else out there for heat pump installations that covers end to end from initial contact right through to handover."
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