How would you like to be able to unlock the door to your house as you’re getting out of your car?
Or control the lights, heat, music and television at home from your iPad or iPhone?
Additional Photos
These high-tech gadgets are no longer the purview of the Jetsons or James Bond. Homeowners who have fantasized about having a smart house that knows what they need before they know it themselves might enjoy listening to Lee Lareau’s presentation at the 22nd Annual Maine Home, Remodeling & Garden Show next weekend at the Cumberland County Civic Center in Portland.
Lareau, owner of Custom Home Theater Systems and Automation in Brunswick, will be giving a seminar at 11:45 a.m. Saturday titled “Home Automation Made Easy.”
“I’d say what’s really exciting is this technology is more affordable than it’s ever been,” Lareau said. “I mean, dramatically more affordable.”
Whether it’s installing home automation, replacing windows or decluttering your home, the annual home show has a little bit of everything for people who are looking to make some home improvements. Homeowners interested in energy efficiency can explore that topic through new boilers, flooring, windows, appliances and even hot tubs.
The show opens at 10 a.m. Saturday and Sunday. More than 180 exhibitors will showcase services and products in categories such as kitchens and bathrooms, outdoor living, building and remodeling, furnishing and decor, and more.
There will also be more than a dozen artisans selling their work at the show. And the popular “Meet the Chefs” cooking demonstrations are back this year as well.
The chef series features cooks from local restaurants such as David’s 388, The Grill Room & Bar and Black Tie Catering. New participants this year include Kathy Gunst, cookbook author and instructor at the Stonewall Kitchen Cooking School; Shannon Bard, chef at Zapoteca in Portland; and Dana Moos, author of “The Art of Breakfast.”
The February home show is one of three produced in Maine and New Hampshire by Dickson & McGonigle. It’s about half the size of the other Maine show, which takes place May 18-20 in Fryeburg, but the people who attend are serious about tracking down the information they need.
“Sometimes they’ll bring in little sketches,” said Cyndi Dickson O’Connor, one of the show’s co-founders. “They come in so prepared, and some of them are there for two or three hours.”
O’Connor said today’s consumer wants to understand better what a contractor or home improvement specialist will actually be doing in their home. They want to meet face to face with them and assess their abilities and character in person.
“People are stepping back and saying, ‘Do I really like this person? Do I like what they’re saying to me?’ ” O’Connor said. “No longer does the consumer write out a check and say, ‘Here you go, when you get to me, you get to me. I don’t care what you’re going to do, just make it beautiful.’
“Now they have a real vested interest in the improvement they’re going to make in their home, and they want to understand what it is that you’re going to do, how you’re going to do it.”
Homeowners looking to examine new options like home automation, or who just want to ask experts questions about topics like replacement windows or geothermal heating and cooling systems, will have the opportunity at a series of seminars and clinics that will be offered both days of the home show.
One of the clinics will be “How to Buy the Right Generator” at 11 a.m. Sunday.
“It’s such a hot topic,” O’Connor said. “How do you determine what is the right type of generator? Is it a full house? Is it one that just runs certain things in your home? Is it one that is directly wired into your home, or is it one you keep in your garage and wheel out? How do you make that decision?”
Lareau said consumers probably aren’t aware that they can have automation in their homes for about a quarter of what it cost just five or six years ago.
“We’ve done lighting control systems in the past that were $30,000, and today you can just literally replace the light switches in the house with these communicating light switches that act like a normal light switch, but they’re tied in and they communicate and they’re programmed into a system,” he said.
“And you can do those a la carte. You could do the whole house, or the key rooms in the house.”
Home automation also allows consumers to monitor energy use in their homes so they can lower energy costs.
Consumers who have solar or geothermal systems, for example, can tie them into predictive software that tracks the local weather. If it’s going to be a balmy 50 degrees tomorrow, the system will know that, and make sure the house doesn’t heat up too much.
Mark Desmarais, owner of Quality Floor Finishers in Biddeford, will be talking about the “Future of Hardwood Floor Refinishing” at 1 p.m. Saturday.
He’ll be demonstrating a relatively new technology that uses ultraviolet light to cure newly finished hardwood floors. The technology has been around for a few years, but is just now making it to Maine.
“Everything’s moving in the green direction, and I’ve decided to get in on it ahead of the game, if you will, with the technology,” Desmarais said.
The UV light is rolled across a floor and hardens it instantly. That means a family doesn’t necessarily have to move out of the house while their floors are being done, and can walk on the floors immediately without harming the new finish.
It also means people and their pets aren’t exposed to toxic substances from the finishing process.
“With conventional, it will dry overnight,” Desmarais explained. “If it’s oil-based finished, it will dry overnight so you may be able to get on it the next day.
“However, for anywhere from two weeks to 30 days, that floor is in its curing process, and as it’s curing, it’s giving off hydrocarbons, which is toxic gases. People are living in there and breathing it in. It’s not cured, so people are walking on it. It’s getting worn away prematurely before it actually hardens completely.”
The technology costs about $1 more per square foot compared with conventional finishing.
Other seminar experts will be talking about topics such as decluttering and organizing your home, and sustainable landscaping.
“I think the key is that there’s something for everyone, whether you’re buying, building, remodeling, redecorating or decorating, or looking for landscaping ideas,” O’Connor said.
“Even if you’re an apartment dweller, there’s something there for you.”
Staff Writer Meredith Goad can be contacted at 791-6332 or at:
mgoad@pressherald.com
Twitter: MeredithGoad
Send questions/comments to the editors.
Success. Please wait for the page to reload. If the page does not reload within 5 seconds, please refresh the page.
Enter your email and password to access comments.
Hi, to comment on stories you must . This profile is in addition to your subscription and website login.
Already have a commenting profile? .
Invalid username/password.
Please check your email to confirm and complete your registration.
Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.
Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.