Smart use of trees does help with cooling and heating costs. Nearly as important, or maybe more important, is getting a great heat pump. I’m looking at Flooid’s new multi stage pump to replace my AC and furnace.
That could work if you have done the soundings and found all the weaknesses. That takes specialized equipment though and you would have to insure that the additional cutting you did would not add any more weaknesses, and that is VERY hard to do.
What is even sadder is that there really is no value in squaring it up. It’s enough to just clean out the debris and then to tamp down the patch afterwards.
Getting dinged for your mistakes is what incentivizes a person to learn from them.