Broco Energy delivers heating oil and propane out of Haverhill and runs a home-services arm alongside it — heating and cooling installs, repairs, boilers, ductless systems, indoor air quality — across the Merrimack Valley and into New Hampshire. Bobby Brown, a Navy Seabee veteran and local fire captain, started it in 2007 with a used oil truck and runs it with his wife Angela; the company says it now has 50 employees, more than 35 trucks and three locations. Its Massachusetts Supplier Diversity Office Veteran Business Enterprise certification is verified active through February 2028.
What customers write about most is a tank running dry in bad weather. In December 2025 a homeowner in the middle of a snowstorm says they called more than ten companies advertising after-hours service and Broco was the one that answered. Another that month credits Jay, Ed, Sandra and Jeanne with coordinating after hours to get a driver out first thing the next morning when their existing supplier had left them at an eighth of a tank. In February 2025 a driver who could not get up an icy driveway parked on the far side of the house, climbed a snowbank and walked the hose through the backyard. In a February 2023 cold snap, a customer whose new furnace died at 11pm from gelled oil had two technicians there within hours and several more across the following days.
Staff get named constantly — Mandy Dogherty in the office, Tom, Angel, Chris the service manager who came out himself to fix a boiler in January 2025, Barry and his crew on a major repair in 2024, Pam in billing. A customer who moved their parents to Broco eight years ago wrote in August that the office staff, drivers and owners had all treated the family well.
The complaints land on the service department and on billing. A customer in March says they were charged for a delivery that was not made because the driveway had not been shoveled, ran out of oil waiting, and got no help after explaining they had had heart surgery. Another March reviewer, seven years and $15,000 in, describes continuing service problems. In October 2025 a customer says a technician failed to show twice without the promised rescheduling call, and a four-star reviewer that month called Broco a good oil supplier with a disappointing service department. A 2023 customer was twice given automatic deliveries they had not asked for, once at about $4 a gallon.
The propane expansion at 168 Hale St has been through the Haverhill City Council repeatedly. On 16 January 2026 the council unanimously revoked a flammable storage permit it had previously granted the company, after, per a 20 January report, it failed to notify abutters within the statutory deadline; on 7 May 2026 the council voted 6-4 to grant a permit for a third 30,000-gallon propane tank, after owner Robert Brown withdrew a request covering three tanker trailers and storage of 8,000 gallons of empty customer tanks. A July 2026 one-star reviewer raised that hearing directly. A trucking data site reports the company's out-of-service rate as above the industry average. For fuel delivery and winter emergencies, this is a company customers say picks up the phone; if you are buying a service plan or a system installation, ask who schedules the technicians, what happens to a delivery charge if the driver cannot reach the tank, and get the automatic-delivery terms in writing.
