Scott Energy Co

When the propane runs out on the coldest Saturday of the winter, the only question that matters is who actually shows up. Scott Energy's reviews keep answering it the same way: a delivery truck mid-snowstorm, a technician at an odd hour, a restaurant left dry by another supplier and back cooking within two hours of the call. The Gloucester company delivers heating oil, propane and diesel across Cape Ann and the surrounding North Shore, and services and installs the heating and cooling equipment it fuels. It dates itself to 1946, when Ed Scott Sr. started Scott Oil Co. with one used truck — a history Fuel Oil News repeats — and the Gloucester Daily Times described the company as family-owned when it bought Clarke Brothers Fuel of Salem in 2016. The reviews lean heavily positive: 4.8 stars from 45 Google ratings, with customers of 19 and 21 years still writing in. What they describe is mostly people, not product. A driver knocked on a door in 2025 to warn that a steep driveway was sheeted in black ice. A chimney company's technician, writing in 2024, called Scott's office and was walked through restarting someone else's boiler. Early this year a customer who signed on in 2025 said the technicians took time to explain the heating system and how to troubleshoot it. Two things to weigh against that. In March 2022 a customer left a detailed one-star account: a burner they say was broken during a tune-up covered by their service contract, more than $600 in parts and labor afterwards, and three return visits that did not hold. And a long-time customer writing in January 2023 noted a couple of services that needed a second visit, while still calling the company extremely responsive. Its BBB page carries an A+ grade, though the business is not BBB accredited. One more thing worth knowing before you call: trade publications reported in October 2022 that Dead River Company of South Portland, Maine had acquired Scott Energy's distillates, propane and HVAC service business, in a transaction that closed on August 16, 2022. The fit is a Cape Ann or North Shore household that wants delivery and system service from the same outfit on a contract. Ask what that contract covers, and how repairs are handled if something breaks during a tune-up.