I don't disagree with your overall point, but if you've ever done your own mudding and taping, I don't think you would consider drywalling unskilled labor. The professionals make it look easy, an amatuer doing it will quickly realize how much skill is actually involved in the mudding and sanding so it looks good, smooth, and doesn't involve a ton of rework and wasted product.
I insure the heck out of my home but with rental properties, the insurance cost is really crazy. I way under insure them for a few reasons. The cost difference really adds up over the years. If there is ever a total loss, I'm not going to rebuild. I'll sell it as is or clean up the mess and sell the lot. At my age there are things that are more fun to be doing.
Most folks only have their home to insure. That should always be covered at least 80% of Replacement Cost for the dwelling. Even the rental properties should cover 80% of Actual Cash Value, a different thing. It’s a Coinsurance clause. If less coverage exists, at the time of a partial loss, the insured will receive only the % of Actual Cash Value that is insured. Example: Replacement $200,000. ACV $100,000 $20,000 insurance. The 80% Coinsurance clause requires $80k. A loss of $20,000 will be paid $5,000, less deductible. That’s $20k/$80k =1/4 payment. Suboptimal. No problem if that’s what you expect. A huge uninsured loss, tax write off, heartache. Sometimes folks will only cover their outstanding mortgage. A real sit down conversation with an agent/broker will open their eyes. What the big print giveth, the small print taketh away. The other Larry, the old insurance guy
I can do it but I'm really slow. A pro would probably grade my work as fair. A few years ago I was in a rush to finish a house, so I hired a guy that said he was a pro. There was a lot of patching and texturing to match. I went over to the house one evening to see how the living room turned out. All of the texturing was running down the walls and half of it was now on the floor. Never saw that before. At that point all the walls had to be scraped, sanded and primed. Lesson learned.
Well I suck at that type work - my brother is great at patching small spots, but not a whole wall. I did teach his oldest son my method - do as best as you can then strategically hang a picture or something over it. In his case it was a splash guard for a garage sink him and his dad installed. Need one of those anyway.
