About
Taggas is a plumbing and heating specialist based in Retford, run by Tim. Tim started as a gas engineer in 2005, got into heat pumps in around 2014, and has gradually shifted the business towards renewables. The company now covers air source heat pumps, solar PV, air conditioning, and still does gas boilers on occasion, with a growing team of installers and designers.
Tim uses Spruce across the full journey from initial enquiry through to handover, with the platform also feeding into their CRM. The business has roughly doubled its design output in the past year, going from around 5 heat loss surveys a week to 9-10.
"I was hesitant to switch, I was stuck in the rat race, always busy, bogged down on paperwork, not knowing which way to turn. Spruce came along and it's one of the best things I've done for the business. We're getting paperwork back to customers quicker, the designs are better, and we're winning more jobs." — Tim, Director
The Challenge
Spending hours on every job before the install even started
Tim's team was using a combination of software tools and manual calculations to produce heat loss reports. The process meant going into a property, measuring every room by hand, writing everything down, then going back to the office and inputting it all again into separate software. An average house would take up to 4 hours, and that was just the heat loss. Radiator sizing, system design and the proposal were all separate tasks on top.
The MCS paperwork was another layer entirely. Every document had to be produced individually, with customer details and values moved manually from one template to the next. Get one number wrong and it could impact the whole pack. Tim describes sleepless nights worrying about whether everything had been signed off before an install.
"I used to have sleepless nights going: I need to sign that off tonight, I need to do that DNO, I'm panicking. But because Spruce takes you step by step through the journey, you can focus your energy on the install knowing you're gonna get the right equipment there, do the job right, commission it right. The paperwork just comes after."
Trying to stand out from the competition
When customers are comparing 3-4 quotes, the documentation matters. Tim's team were producing accurate work, but the format - spreadsheets, basic templates - didn't make it easy for customers to see that. Companies with polished, branded proposals had an advantage before anyone had read the numbers.
The Solution
With Spruce, the survey happens on site using LiDAR scanning. Tim's team scans the property, checks it in Spruce and adds the key information room by room. What used to take 3-4 hours of measuring, sketching and re-entering data drops to around an hour.
That time saving changes what happens on site. Instead of spending hours measuring every last detail by hand, Tim can spend that time with the customer - explaining pipe runs, talking through how the heat pump will work, managing expectations about the install. The survey becomes a conversation, not a data collection exercise - all of which builds trust and helps Taggas win the job.
The design follows straight from the survey in the same system. Radiator selection is visual: green means it fits the space and meets the heat loss, red means it doesn't. Heat pump sizing works the same way. There's no going back to separate spreadsheets to check whether a unit actually delivers what it needs to at the design temperature. And the step-by-step process runs all the way through to MCS compliance and handover, so paperwork builds up throughout the project rather than becoming a scramble the night before.
"Some of the older boys were using pen and pencil. But it just takes so much more time. You can spend a lot more time with the customer explaining about pipe runs and how heat pumps work rather than spending 2-3 hours measuring every single nook and cranny. It allows you more time to be customer focused and not a robot."
The Results
Key outcomes:
Faster survey and designs: 4 → 1 hour
Higher survey capacity: 5 → 9/10 per week
Faster response time: Proposals back to customers in days rather than weeks
Higher win rate: More jobs won, attributed directly to the quality and professionalism of proposals
The numbers speak for themselves. Tim's team is producing nearly twice the volume of designs, and none of this growth is coming at the expense of quality - it's the opposite.The proposals resonate with every type of customer - the ones who just want to know if they'll save money, and the ones who want to interrogate every correction factor and delta T value.
"They're more accurate, they look more professional. We've now seen other people's heat loss calcs and I just know ours is going to be far superior. Not in a smug way, but it just looks a lot nicer, it's easier for the customer to understand. We're winning more jobs because they look so much better."
That confidence runs through the team. Designers are sending out work they're proud of. The sales side is converting more because proposals don't need explaining. And the cost of Spruce itself barely registers against what it delivers.
"Even if one of those jobs comes off, that's covered your monthly subscription."
Tim can focus on what he actually enjoys: being in front of customers, talking through the install, and making sure every job is done right. Going back to the old way isn't something he's willing to contemplate.
"If Spruce disappeared tomorrow, I'd have to retire. I couldn't be doing all this again."