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When You Don’t Have Room on Your Roof for Solar Panels

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So you want to add solar to your home. Good for you! But, problem.

It is rare that a roof seems made for solar, like this one.

More often, a person winds up in a home that just does not have a solar-friendly roof. It’s too small, or it’s too steep, or it faces the wrong way, or it’s too riddled with little gables and dorm windows and turrets and whatnot. It’s not wrong to have a busy roof. It’s just wrong for solar.

But that is no reason to simply give up on generating your own power. You have more room for solar than you think.

Don’t just think of only your roof when you think of where to put your solar. Think of all the airspace over all of your land as potential solar-generating airspace.

Almost everybody has some empty air over where the car gets parked. Many times you can attach a structure to hold your solar panels over where you park.

Perhaps there’s a lawn that could use a shading device like a pergola.

The design options are limitless.

How about around behind a pool? It’s nice to have some shade back there, anyway. Why not put that roof to work?

Lots of houses really need awnings over Southwest windows that are too blaring now. And facing Southwest is the perfect spot for making some solar juice. But solar panels work much more efficiently when connected, than separated like this. But this is a start at thinking of dual-use solar panels.

Adding a solar awning can simply shade an entry as this one does. It’s important to design it so it works well with your house. This is a nice way to hold the panels themselves but the design needs to be integrated into the structure better. (Or perhaps it’s just that railing and walkway that needs to be revamped!)

Here’s a much more well-integrated design. Imagine this with bi-facial solar panels, the see-through kind on glass. A solar roof can create a porch space between two parts of the house. Almost every home looks better with some kind of outdoor room. A porch or veranda. Why not design one to add solar to some of that wasted airspace around your no-good-for-solar roof.

A new solar porch can be built in any style. What better excuse for a porch than to start making up for all that nasty power that you use inside, by making your own nice clean future-friendly power yourself on a beautiful new veranda roof.

It’s just being responsible, after all!