Getting Burned on Home Heating Oil? More Than Half of Firms Failed Inspections
This story was produced in conjunction with the NYCity News Service and with the support of the Equity Through Data Projectat the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY.
About half of the companies that deliver home heating oil to New Yorkers failed at least one inspection of truck gauges meant to ensure residents get the fuel they pay for, an analysis of records shows.
More than 330,000 households in New York City — primarily in The Bronx and Manhattan — rely on home fuel oil to heat their homes during the winter. To make sure customers are not shortchanged, each year the New York Department of Consumer and Worker Protection inspects the gauges of all delivery trucks.
Since mid-2023, inspectors have flunked the gauges on one in every 10 trucks they checked. An examination of ownership records by the NYCity News Service shows that 55% of fuel oil delivery companies had at least one inspection failure during the past two years.
One company failed more than half of its inspections during that timespan, DCWP records show. Among those with the worst records are:
- Five Boro Fuel Oil Ltd. failed five out of nine inspections since 2023. The company was also found guilty, in two administrative cases, on two counts of not submitting a vehicle for inspection. The Staten Island-based company declined to comment.
- Logic Fuel Transportation failed eight out of 20 inspections. The company, based in Lake Carmel, N.Y., with a mailing address in The Bronx, faces 11 administrative charges of failing to submit a vehicle for inspection and one charge of tampering with a security seal on a meter after inspection. The outcomes are pending.
- JAG Transporting Inc failed 12 inspections — a third of its inspections — since 2023. The Thornwood, N.Y.-based company was found guilty on one administrative charge of using an uninspected pump and one administrative charge of tampering with a security seal. JAG Transporting directed calls to a partner company, Admiral Energy, which declined to comment.
Over two years since mid-2023, companies across the city were found guilty on 56 charges, the vast majority for not submitting a vehicle for the required annual inspection. Other charges included tampering with the security seal or using a truck that has not been inspected, passed or sealed by an inspector.
James Hurst, a DCWP deputy commissioner, said the petroleum industry is a priority for the agency. He said fuel trucks and gas stations pose the greatest risk of consumer harm. “There’s a real potential risk and a history, actually, of those devices being tampered with,” he said.
A decade ago, then-Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. filed criminal and civil charges against more than 45 people at nine companies indicted in an alleged multimillion-dollar fraud. The businesses allegedly shortchanged customers by manipulating measuring devices to deliver less oil than building owners were charged for. Within a year, over 15 pled guilty and millions were ordered in restitution, fines and forfeiture.
Despite that history, “most companies are honest and want to comply with the law,” the DCWP said in a statement. The agency pointed to one company with a large fleet whose trucks passed more than 100 inspections and failed only a handful in two years. “Because there is so much variation between individual businesses, we believe the 10% overall inspection failure rate is more illustrative of the industry’s compliance.”
Inside the fuel truck inspection process
Measuring fuel delivery is simple: Fuel oil flows from a truck’s tank through a gauge that tracks how much fuel passes through, and then into a customer’s home.
Businesses must have their trucks’ meters inspected every year at the DCWP’s block-long low-rise facility on Meserole Avenue in Brooklyn. Inspectors conducted more than 900 inspections over two years, with each inspection lasting 15 minutes to two hours.
Each truck’s delivery pump is attached to an inspector’s “prover” tank that holds a certain amount of oil — 300 gallons, for example. The truck then dispenses oil into the prover tank, and once it’s full, inspectors check the truck’s meter for discrepancies.The truck passes only if the measurement is within 0.3% of being accurate.
Inspectors also check the piping to ensure fuel is not being diverted in the process, that pipes from the truck are dispensing correctly and that the ticket printer — which tells customers how much fuel they’ve purchased — is accurate.
Most modern trucks use digital measuring devices, though older vehicles might have mechanical devices. Some in the industry believe digital devices are more accurate.
According to Hector Serrano, a former enforcement director for the agency who worked there from 1973 to 2002, analog mechanical gauges could be tampered with by adjusting weights, springs or dials, allowing a company to shave off small amounts of oil, undetectable to the average consumer. Digital systems, however, are locked by software and leave less room for manipulation, making cheating easier to detect, he noted.
Yet even digital devices aren’t foolproof. Electrical wiring problems or bad connections can lead to inaccurate measurements.
‘Could ruin a business’
Inspections are intended to ensure customers and businesses are not ripped off, according to the National Council on Weights and Measures, which develops national standards on measuring devices.
But a failed inspection does not necessarily mean that a company deliberately tampered with equipment. Measuring devices naturally lose in accuracy over time, according to fuel oil companies, and maintaining and replacing the equipment can be costly.
A truck driver for one local oil company estimated that replacing an old mechanical gauge with a new electronic meter system could cost $25,000, with replacement parts and repairs for mechanical meters also expensive. To stay ahead of problems, the company conducts its own internal inspections every month, the driver said.
When a truck fails inspections, it is no longer allowed to deliver oil until it has been fixed and reinspected. Any repair work must be done by a licensed repair shop. The meter must then be approved by DCWP before the vehicle can be used to deliver fuel oil.
Each inspection — pass or fail — costs $150.
When a truck passes inspection, a bright orange plastic seal is placed around the meter by the inspector. The meter also receives a sticker showing the month and year it passed inspection.
One driver who did not want to be named because he was not authorized by his company to speak to the press said that if a seal is found to be tampered with, inspectors examine all of the company’s trucks, with potential fines in the thousands. “It could ruin a business,” the driver said.
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