Summer Valley is south-east of Meadowood around Quincy Reservoir, and it is the one neighborhood in this area built mostly in the 1980s, so second furnace replacements and AC repair on aging cooling systems are common.
The city's subdivision records list Summer Valley filings 3 through 30 between 1976 and 1988, along with Mill Run, Summer Breeze and Victoria Crossing from the late 1970s and 1980s and Summerfield from 2005 to 2008. The main roads are Hampden Avenue, Quincy Avenue, Smoky Hill Road, Buckley Road and Tower Road, with Wagon Trail Parkway, Mansfield Avenue and Jefferson Avenue inside the neighborhood.
Quincy Reservoir
Quincy Reservoir sits inside the city's Summer Valley boundary. It is a City of Aurora reservoir run for water storage and recreation (Quincy Reservoir city page). Summer Valley Park is on the neighborhood's north side, and the Summer Valley Shopping Center is nearby.
1980s Homes and Their Heating
In the Census tracts covering Summer Valley, the 1980s were the biggest building decade in all four, and the median build year in the most-built tract is 1983 (Summer Valley tract data). Between about 72 and 80 percent of homes are detached houses, and gas heats roughly 69 to 79 percent of them.
Many 1980s furnaces in Summer Valley have already been replaced once, and the first air conditioners added in that era are being replaced too. Many houses from this decade have the furnace in a basement with a finished family room around it, which makes the return air path and the filter rack easy to block. Summerfield homes from the 2000s are more likely to have a 90 percent furnace with PVC vents from the start.
Buckley Space Force Base and E-470
Buckley Space Force Base, Aurora's largest employer, is north of Summer Valley (Buckley Space Force Base). Hampden Avenue, State Highway 30, ends at Quincy Avenue near exit 13 of E-470, the tollway on Aurora's eastern side (E-470 tollway history).
Neighbors of Summer Valley
Mission Viejo is to the west, Meadowood is north-west, and the Piney Creek and Smoky Hill neighborhoods of Centennial are to the south. See the full Aurora service area.
Furnace and AC Repairs in Summer Valley
- Second-generation gas furnaces: inducer motors, control boards, blower motors
- Limit trips from blocked returns in finished basements
- Condensate traps and drain lines on 90 percent furnaces
- AC capacitors, contactors and coils on 1980s and 1990s cooling systems
- Thermostat and wiring repairs on older two-wire systems
Sources and local offices: Cherry Creek School District, NOAA climate normals, Aurora, Colorado.