My first suggestion was that we buy a clothesline and hang it in the back yard in an effort to use the dryer less. The response was not overwhelming. Think how many great movie moments involve clotheslines. Man comes home from war and surprises mother hanging up clothes. Man comes home from war and surprises wife hanging up clothes.
Man comes home from war and is surprised by wife kissing man next door while hanging up clothes.
In addition to the clothesline, my second solution was to go to the hardware store and buy a couple of shades to hang outside the windows on the east and west sides of the house. You know the kind of shades I'm talking about. The kind that lasts three months and then one string gets shorter than the other and only one side pulls up or lets down, and you have the slanties. Washing the dishes by hand rather than using the dishwasher. I imagined that this would be a family activity where one person would wash and another dry and they would have a pleasant conversation about what they did that day or how mad they were at their parents for being so retro.