Construction

Construction is a skill that allows players to build their own houses and provide furnishings for it. It is also very useful in connection to many other skills, such as prayer, mining and crafting. Construction is a way to show off houses to others. It was released on May 31, 2006.

Basics
To begin Construction, players must buy a house from one of the Estate Agents (see below). A starter house will cost 1000 coins, and will be in Rimmington. A level 40 Magic spell can then be used to teleport to the house, or players can walk to any house portals ( icon on map) that will teleport players to their house. Note that players can only enter their house by using the portal in the city of their houses.

The house starts off with only a small room and garden, but more can be built. To build, go to Player Controls, select "House Options", and set the Building mode to ON. Players will then see white furnitures called "Hotspots", where new objects can be built. Players can also visit a friend's house if the friend is inside his home.

Construction is widely regarded as one of the most costly skills to level up. To get to level 99 fast it would take about an estimated 139 million coins using mahogany planks or about 54 million coins using the slower oak planks. A player with no money could just mine 1.3 million clays or 651K limestone bricks to build fireplaces. See the bottom of this page to see the suggested training method.

See the Constructed items list for details on what you can build at what level. (As stated above, Construction will not be cheap, getting to just level 25 might cost 150k)

Estate agents
Estate agents are located (identified with the house icon on the map) in
 * Varrock, northwest of the Museum, west of the Saradominist church.
 * Seers' Village, northeast of the bank.
 * Falador, between the furnace and the east bank.
 * Ardougne, west of the south bank.

House portals
Estate agents can move a player's house from its starter location Rimmington to a new location identified by the portal icon on the map.

House styles
Estate agents can also redecorate the outside of your house for a fee. Note that the portal in Basic Wood style is facing north/south, while the ones of all other styles are facing east/west.

It is worth noting that for each new style of house you get, the enter tune for the house changes, based on the style your house has.



Rooms
There are many different rooms that can be added to houses. The house a player buys will begin with a garden and parlour, but more rooms can be added. Different rooms will require different Construction levels and will cost money.

Maximum Number of Rooms and Area
Up to level 49 construction, a maximum of 20 rooms and gardens can be built. This rises to a maximum of 30 rooms at level 99 construction.

There is also a maximum area that can be built on that also goes up with construction level, starting at 3 rooms by 3 rooms up to 8 rooms by 8 rooms.

Materials
Many different items are needed for Construction, especially planks, nails, cloth, bricks, soft clay, and steel bars.

Plank spawns
The most affordable way to level up the early levels of Construction is by collecting free planks which can be found at various spawn points.

Entrana

 * Main article: Entrana

On the island of Entrana, a set of planks respawn at considerable speed. The plank respawn is located is located to the north of island, just west of the entrance to the Law altar. This is a good source of free regular planks, if money is an issue for players. However, one has to travel back and forth between the island and the mainland to empty the inventory, as there is no bank in Entrana. In addition, no armour and weapon is allowed into Entrana.

Barbarian Outpost

 * Main article: Barbarian Outpost

Just north of the Barbarian Outpost Agility course there are a four plank spawn points that can be collected in a reasonably quick time. Additionally right next door inside Barbarian Assault there is a bank deposit box allowing for quick banking of all collected planks. The quickest ways to get to the Barbarian Outpost is to teleport to this location via a games necklace or with either the group or regular Lunar magic Barbarian Teleport spell.

Graveyard of Shadows (wilderness)

 * Main article: Graveyard of Shadows

Located between Clan Wars and Bounty Hunter is the Graveyard of Shadows which has a total of five plank spawn points. The fastest way here is to teleport to Clan Wars via a games necklace and walk west. The nearest bank is at Bounty Hunter a little west of the graveyard. The wilderness is the only place where free-to-play players can collect planks with the majority of the spawns located in the Graveyard of Shadows.

Port Khazard

 * Main article: Port Khazard

Port Khazard also has two plank spawn points located between the two general stores and conveniently also has a bank deposit box.

Sawmill Operator

 * Main article:Sawmill

The Sawmill operator, on the south side of the Varrock lumberyard with the icon on the minimap, can turn logs into planks for a fee. He also sells bolts of cloth, some nails, and saws.

Plank Make spell

 * Main article:Plank make

As an alternative to the sawmill operator, the Plank make spell can be used to create planks for use in construction. Unfortunately, this requires a minimum Magic level of 86 and to have completed the Lunar Diplomacy and Dream Mentor quests (it uses the Lunar spellbook). While superficially it may appear to be a cheaper alternative to the sawmill operator, when you factor in the cost of the runes consumed (even using an Earth staff to eliminate the need for Earth runes) it will end up costing you more than the sawmill operator.

Note: This spell is quite slow and while it may be a good way of getting mage xp, unlike alchemy spells it isn't as fast since there is a warning every time you cast it, slowing down the process of making planks immensely.

Nails
Nails can be smithed from all types of metals by players. Additionally, the Sawmill Operator sells bronze, iron, and steel nails. When constructing objects using nails, there is a possibility that players will bend a nail. With higher level nails such as rune, this possibility becomes less. Since higher level nails are expensive, most players prefer using iron nails or steel nails. However, with oak items and above, joints are used in place of nails.

Stonemason
Players can buy various buliding materials from the Stonemason in west Keldagrim just southernmost corner from the bank.

Limestone bricks (26 coins) and limestone (10 coins) can also be bought from Mort'ton building store. (requires Shades of Mort'ton Quest)

Players can also mine their own limestone east of Varrock or Arandar and use a chisel to make it into limestone bricks.

Bagged plants
The Garden supplier in Falador Park sells a variety of different plants that can be used by players in their Gardens and Formal Gardens.

Stuffed heads
Players can get monster heads, which are randomly dropped from monsters. These can be turned into trophies from the Taxidermist in Canifis. These trophies can then be put in Skill halls. Players can interact with the stuffed heads with some funny pun.

The taxidermist can also stuff Big bass, Big swordfish and Big shark, which are randomly obtained through fishing the correct type of fish.

Herald
Players can buy maps, landscapes and portraits for decoration by talking to Sir Renitee in Falador Castle - he's upstairs on the east side of the building. Additionally, the Herald can change a player's family crest, which appears throughout the house and on armour created by the player. You may also make steel and rune full helmets into Heraldic with your crest.

Servants
To hire a servant, players must have at least two bedrooms. Servants are hired in the north-easternmost building in Ardougne. There are five different servants, which can do different things. If you already have a servant, you will need to fire him or her in order to hire a new servant. All servants are able to greet guests entering a players' home, but some will have different abilities, such as taking items to and from the bank or sawmill. The higher level servant you have, the faster his or her service is. After using a servant's services seven times, you will be asked to pay him or her again. After using a servant's services eight times, you are required to pay him or her or the servant will quit without giving you the items they are carrying for you from their last trip. The items will be deposited in your bank if the servant is fired.

Strategy
Building oak furniture at your workbench provides a nice balance of cost and experience. You could also break down and build oak larders in your kitchen, which uses 8 planks each build and is thus as fast or faster than building oak furniture at your workbench which you have to drop.

You can use noted oak logs with your butler, who will exchange them for un-noted oak logs, and then send him to the sawmill to get oak planks.

At level 28 Construction, players can make Skill Hall armour stands, provided that they have either full Castle Wars armour or have 68 or higher smithing. These stands provide either 67.5, 75, or 82.5 experience per oak plank (2 needed), and can be taken apart, allowing players to regain their armour. As most things made with oak planks provide only 60 experience per plank, this provides more experience, however, it is much slower than building oak larders which use 8 oak planks instead of 2.

For level 33-40, limestone seems to be a cheap option - building lots of fireplaces. After you have reached level 40 or above, you should switch back to oak because the experience will be too slow after this for you to level.

At level 74 Construction, dungeon oak doors (10 oak planks) may be faster than oak larders (8 oak planks); 4 dungeon doors instead of 5 larders for the same experience.

1Butler costs roughly halved if you're doing armour stands, because you only have 20 free inventory spots you may as well have a normal butler rather than a demon butler.

As we can see from the table, Construction costs at least 3 coins per experience point, and in practice, getting fast experience will mean spending more like 6-7 coins per experience point.

Have a Dining Room near the Kitchen (if you're doing larders), the Workshop (if you're making flat-packs) or the Skill Hall (if you're making armour stands) and therefore use the butler bell-pull so you can summon him quickly when he wanders off around the house.

Experience
This chart shows the experience given per object when each object is used. The cost per experience point is based in part off of what the raw components cost with Grand Exchange prices for raw components. The cost of "free" components is based on what you may be able to sell those items for (aka lost opportunity costs).

Total Supplies

 * 500 iron nails
 * 100 planks
 * 510 oak planks
 * 4 steel bars
 * 1,040 teak planks
 * 300 bolts of cloth
 * 92,140 mahogany planks

The cost to get from level 52 (123,660 xp) to level 99 (13,034,431 xp OR total 12,910,771 xp) is:

92,220 Mahogany planks (140 xp) * 1500 coins = 138.3 million coins for fastest xp

143,453 Teak planks (90 xp) * 500 coins = 71.7 million coins

215,180 Oak planks (60 xp) * 250 coins = 53.7 million coins for cheaper slower xp

Total Supplies

 * 250 iron nails
 * 100 wooden planks
 * 217198 oak planks (this may look like a lot, but you will get to 99 quickly)

Get there cheap
These have the advantage that they have the potential to build mining, smithing, and crafting skills as well. However, if you already have a good money-making skill, it can be more cost-effective to spend your time making money, buy your resources, and then use the "medium-fast" methods described above rather than spending more time collecting and using free resources.
 * Spend a lot of time using 1,303,443 soft clay to make clay fireplaces without spending a single coin. With your house in Rimmington, get clay from the nearby mine.
 * Collect 434,481 planks from the 4 plank spawn sites just north of Barbarian Outpost; there's a handy bank drop in the Barbarian Assault compound. Given the re-spawn rate and the travel to/from the bank drop, this averages about 10 seconds per plank. Mine and forge iron ore and then smith about 700,000 iron nails. (Do not make bronze nails; this requires twice as much mining to produce the same quantity of nails. For the same reason, do not make steel or better nails; the negligible improvement in nail performance is not worth the added mining time. Buy Rings of forging, forge 140 iron ores into bars, sell 5 of the bars to pay for the ring, and end up with 135 bars where you otherwise would have had about 70, thereby almost halving the amount of time spent mining.) Now make Rocking chairs, wooden bookcases, or some other plank-and-nail type furniture.
 * Use 651,722 Limestone bricks to build only stone fireplaces.
 * Buy from the Stonemason in Keldagrim for 26 coins, about 16.9 million coins.
 * Buy from Razmire Keelgan's builders store in Mort'ton 21 coins for about 13.7 million coins.
 * Buy Limestone from Razmire Keelgan's builders store in Mort'ton 10 coins each. Craft them to bricks with a chisel. It's a bit slower, but considerably cheaper. In addition, this yields you a sizable amount of crafting experience.
 * Mine from next to Rag and Bone man, teleport to Castle Wars, use Balloon Transport to get back quickly. Craft limestone bricks with your chisel. This is the slowest, but cheapest and practically free method.
 * Build an Oak larder as soon as you are able (Construction level 33). On every subsequent construction trip to your house, load up your inventory with flour before you leave, then sell it on the Grand Exchange. Flour sells for coins, and it sells much faster than furniture. In some cases, especially if you don't want a GE slot tied up for long periods of time, it may be advisable to drop flatpacks of cheap furniture and collect flour instead.

Temporary boosts
Depending on the type of shelf, tea will give a 1, 2, or 3 level bonus. With a normal cup, tea gives +1 Construction. With a porcelain cup, tea gives +2 Construction. With a gold-rimmed cup, tea gives +3 Construction.

The crystal saw will only work with items that require a saw to build them (will not work when building rooms, placing monsters or growing plants) It will also work simultaneously with bonuses from tea (to get max of +6) or Evil Dave's spicy stew, allowing for a max of +9 to Construction!

For the maximum effect in evil Dave's stew, add orange spice 3 times. Any more will ruin the stew.

Trivia
Initially, Construction seems to be an extremely money-intensive skill. It may be that Jagex have intended player-owned houses as gold sinks, and the intention is to take considerable amounts of cash out of the game.

The watch, sextant and chart cannot be used in your house, trying to use it will give the message: "The sextant doesn't seem to work here".

In RuneScape Classic, there was a skill that had no use called Carpentry. The skill today of Construction was an updated version of this dead skill.

Cursed You was the first player to get 99 Construction; to celebrate it, he hosted a house party which led to the notorious Falador Massacre.

The most common cape that NPCs wear is the Construction cape.