Near a small building in Blades, Del., along the Nanticoke River, James E. Willey jumped into his truck and drove to a customer’s home. He alerted the family to his arrival and then began to fill a 5-gallon bucket with oil and carry it to the tank — making as many trips as necessary to fill the homeowner’s heat supply.
So began Peninsula Oil & Propane in 1935. Willey had one employee to help with deliveries.
Today everything is metered, says John Willey, the fourth-generation president of the family business. “And we have truck pumps, GPS to get us to the right house and it takes two to three minutes to fill a tank.”
Willey oversees 50 employees serving customers in Sussex and Kent counties in Delaware; Dorchester, Worcester, Wicomico, Caroline, Somerset, Queen Anne’s and Talbot counties in Maryland.
Through the decades, Peninsula Oil & Propane continued to grow and today features cutting-edge programs, computer software and high-tech testing equipment — something Willey’s great-grandfather could not have dreamt of.
Terms such as profiling software, ultrasonic, soy bio-heat, Web site and YouTube are not something past Willeys would have fathomed.
The company has weathered its 75 years through innovations.
Willey’s grandfather, John Willey, took over Peninsula Oil & Propane in 1940. The population grew in Seaford when the DuPont plant opened and hired 5,000 people in 1939. This new customer base and the fact the country was converting from coal to oil increased their business.
Most noteworthy in the 1950s, says Willey, was the company’s branching into servicing homeowners’ heating systems.
Through the 1960s to ’80s, trucks got bigger, pumps were added and business continued to grow. During the 1990s they began utilizing computer systems allowing Peninsula Oil & Propane to estimate when a tank was getting low and refill it before the homeowner ran out of oil on a cold night.
Peninsula Oil & Propane strives for the best service, prices and products for its customers, which is why the company has invested in innovative programs and new fuels, saving money and the planet. And, of course, great customer service provided by a trained staff. “What is impressive to me is the dedication of our employees to our customers,” says Willey. “They are the people who go out when someone’s heat goes out late at night. They are home with their own families yet they are willing to go out and help someone. It’s really a good thing.”
One of the cutting-edge programs offered by the company is “TankSure,” a testing, inspection, protection and warranty program for aboveground fuel oil storage tanks. Here’s how it works: a trained service technician performs an ultrasonic test of the tank (similar to a medical ultrasound), to show the precise thickness of a tank. The technician takes a reading at the top of the tank, where the optimal thickness of the tank is found, and then tests a dozen other places to find the thinnest.
These annual readings are then analyzed by a software program, which will not only show when a tank should be replaced, but also uncover a deteriorating tank before it becomes a hazard.
“We can predict when the tank will fail,” said Willey. “It’s pretty much free of charge. The $39 a year includes annual inspections, paperwork and the new tank,” he adds. The TankSure program provides a warranty covering up to $1,000 of the replacement cost.
In 2003, Peninsula Oil & Propane began selling bio-fuels. “It’s basically a 5 percent blend of soy. This blending stretches the oil supply as a nation, so we are more domestically oriented in our oil needs. The point of the 5 percent blend is you can use it in any vehicle and any heating system,” says Willey.
As a bio-fuel pioneer, Peninsula Oil & Propane offers blends ranging from B2 (2 percent soy oil) to B100 (pure soy fuel). They buy refined soy oil by the tractor-trailer from America’s farmers and blend it using metered pumps for custom orders.
Another service is annual tune-ups on home heating systems. Tune-ups are a simple way to help customers save 10 percent on energy use. “We go in and change air filters in the house, change oil filters, nozzles, all the parts. We keep track of how efficient it is over time,” adds Willey.
A visit to www.penoil.com shows everything Peninsula Oil & Propane offers: products, equipment, installation, service plans, employment opportunities, easy payment plans and bill pay on the secure site.
Peninsula Oil & Propane, 40 S. Market St., Seaford, Del.,
1-888-410-WARM,
302-629-3001
www.penoil.com
Check out Peninsula Oil & Propane on YouTube at www.youtube.com/watch?v=zz1eDsEu4aQ.
