[palmer]

All houses should have shade trees shading them. Mine are elm and pecan. Also I have plenty of spare square footage in the yard to use for panels

[Svartalfiar]

All houses should have shade trees shading them. Mine are elm and pecan. Also I have plenty of spare square footage in the yard to use for panels

It's pretty hard to get your whole house shaded. Plus, it takes a looong time for that - my house was built in 1992 and the oak tree out front is only about 15-20 feet taller than the house. It shades half the front and maybe a bit of the corner of the roof, that's it. The stupid not-crabapple whatever-it-is tree in the back shades the corner between the patio and the fence, so almost no grass grows there. Gives shade to the patio roof, as it's maybe 5-10 feet taller than the house, though I think it's several years younger than the oak.

And many houses don't even have that. It takes decades to grow a shade tree, or way too much $$$ to start big. And I doubt most people have 2-300 sqft of space in their front/back yard that they'd be willing to burn on solar panels...