John S Martin Co Inc

Almost everything written about John S. Martin Co. is about its trucks, not its heating work — and that is the single most useful thing to know before you call. The company has been delivering and servicing oil heat in Marblehead for a very long time. Its BBB profile says the firm was established in 1886 and incorporated in Massachusetts in 1967, employs nine people, and is run by president Frank W. Chandler with John Chandler as vice president. What it does is narrow and consistent: fuel oil, plus the sale, service and installation of oil burners and oil heating equipment. It is a Marblehead Chamber of Commerce member, and BBB grades it A+ while listing it as not accredited — two separate things. The heating side, where anyone actually writes about it, reads well. A customer writing in December 2025 described calls answered quickly, oil always on hand, annual servicing, and new furnaces bought years ago by them and a previous condo owner without trouble. The complaints go somewhere else entirely. In February 2026, a driver stuck behind a delivery truck blocking a one-way street described the driver ignoring repeated attempts to talk to him and then shouting. A 2023 reviewer made the same charge at length — drivers parking mid-street and refusing to move, a knocked-over retaining wall left as it fell, and an unhelpful call to the office afterwards. In September 2022 a man said his wife asked for help with an oil boiler and was told to call another company because they were not customers. Its Google average sits at 2.7 across seven ratings, and the most recent comment is one of the negative ones. One credential point to raise with them directly: the Massachusetts registry carries an HVAC licence, number 7733-SM-M1, under the name John S Martin, and it is expired. The officers BBB names are Chandlers, so it is worth asking who currently holds the technician licences that cover your burner or boiler work, and confirming it with the state. The fit here is a long-standing local oil account — steady delivery, annual burner service, equipment replacement when it comes to that — from a customer who values that the company has been on the North Shore for generations. Ask about the licence status, and if a truck is coming to a tight street, say so when you book.