Stepping inside Zack Dixon’s foyer is akin to stepping back in time 40 years. A chartreuse green glow washes over you and a large mirror reflects hints of art deco. The shag carpet confirms this house’s birth in the early 1970s, and also whispers of its outdated structure.

Since Dixon’s childhood, much of which he spent in the groovy house his grandfather built, three heating systems have broken down, leaving space heaters as his only choice. He remembers the days of the oil boiler and baseboard heaters—the luxury of having a thermostat. “It was awesome when taking a shower,” Dixon says. “Now when I want to do that I have to put the heater in there and let it warm up.” After his grandmother passed away, “it dried up,” says Dixon. “We couldn’t afford the oil.”

He moved back into the house in Boone, N.C. to take care of his grandmother when she was sick, while facing a serious physical ailment himself. Dixon has a degenerative bone disorder. He has had both of his hips replaced and he can no longer work in the field he was trained in, carpentry. After losing his job last April, he has been unable to find work due to his physical limitations. “I’m hanging on by a thread,” says Dixon. “I don’t know how I came this far.”

But even before Dixon lost his job, he was having trouble paying the bills. Last winter, in the dead cold of the polar vortex, he received help from Blue Ridge Electric’s Operation RoundUp program and Watauga County Crisis Assistance Network. Still, his electricity was shut off and he went to stay at a neighbor’s house. This winter, his electricity has already been shut off three times. He is on a pay-as-you-go program with Blue Ridge Electric. “I’ll be in the positives, then the next day I’ll be in the negatives,” says Dixon. He once experienced his electricity being shut off for being 43 cents in the red. That time, he was lucky; it was summer.

For three years, Dixon has been on a waiting list for a W.A.M.Y. retrofit, a local program funded by the federal government for low-income families, but the demand for energy efficiency upgrades exceeds the four-county program’s capacity. Running his space heaters cost him about $15 a day during the winter, compared to his standard usage of $3 during the summer. “I could have $200 on my bill, if I wasn’t losing all the heat,” says Dixon.

Dixon’s house lacks sufficient insulation. The two bedrooms are situated over the garage, which is not insulated. There is no crawl space, so essentially there is no insulation surrounding the bottom part of his house. The attic is insulated to about half the level required by building codes. There are air leaks throughout his house, including around doors and recessed lighting, but the major air leak is a hole cut out from his hallway floor into the garage.

There is a wood stove in the garage, which supplemented heat in the past and was hooked up to the oil boiler system. Dixon cut the hole in the floor to allow the wood heat into his main floor. Tricks like this demonstrate the craftiness homeowners resort to when homes lack central heating systems. After a chimney fire scare last year, though, he no longer uses the stove. The hole is now covered by a thin rug.

As grand prize winner of the High Country Home Energy Makeover Contest, Zack Dixon will receive from Sunny Day Homes insulation and air-sealing in his attic and garage, two quick steps that will greatly improve the house’s energy efficiency and his quality of life. All of the air leaks around Dixon’s home will be sealed with a caulk gun. And compact fluorescent light bulbs will replace incandescent bulbs — the frosting on this energy makeover cake.

“The most important thing I never realized, until I met [the Energy Savings team at Appalachian Voices], is how bad I lose heat,” Dixon says. “I knew heat rises but I didn’t know it was that bad.” Dixon plans to attend school so that he can get a “desk job” like the doctor ordered. He hopes to be an architect and design his own house one day — in a very energy efficient way.

Learn more about Appalachian Voices’ Energy Savings for Appalachia program and the High Country Home Energy Makeover Contest.