Construction

Construction is a skill that allows players to build their own houses and provide furniture for them. It was released on May 31, 2006.

Basics
To begin Construction, players must buy a house from one of the Estate Agents; see below for locations. 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 Rimmington, where there is a portal ( icon on map) that will teleport players to their house. 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 build mode to on. Players will then see what looks like ghost-like "Hot Spots" where new objects can be built. Players can also visit a friend's house if they are home and using the same portal.

Keep in mind that if you want to get a high construction level, it's likely to cost a lot.

See the Constructed Items list for details on what you can build at what level.

Estate agents
Estate agents are located (identified with the house icon on the map) in
 * Varrock, just east of the palace.
 * 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.

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.

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

Sawmill operator
The sawmill operator, just south of the Varrock lumberyard with the icon on the map, can turn logs into planks, for a fee, and also sells cloth, some nails, and a saw. In order to begin Construction, you must have a saw. Players can get planks by taking logs to the Sawmill Operator. Right-clicking on this NPC, there will be a "Buy planks" option. Players can then choose whether to make regular, oak, teak, or mahogany planks.

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 likely. Because higher level nails are expensive, most players prefer to use mid-level nails such as iron or steel. However, with oak items and above, joints are used in place of nails.

Stonemason
Players can buy various stoneworking materials from the Stonemason in Keldagrim.

Bagged plants
The Gardener 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, randomly dropped from monsters, turned into frightening trophies at the Taxidermist in Canifis. These trophies can then be used in Skill halls.

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 and portraits for decoration by talking to the Herald 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.

Servants
To hire a servant, players must have at least two bedrooms. 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 service is. After using a servant's services seven times, you will need to pay him or her again.

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 armour stands, provided that they have either full Castle Wars armour or have 68 or higher smithing. These stands provide from 67.5-80xp per oak plank, and can be taken apart, allowing players to regain their armour. As most things made with oak planks provide only 60xp per plank, this provides more experience, however, it is much slower than building oak larders.

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.

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 a 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.

Quests

 * Darkness of Hallowvale - 2000 xp to 8000 xp (optional)
 * The Eyes of Glouphrie - 250 xp

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) It will also work simulaneosly with evil Dave's stew and tea allowing for a max of 12+ 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 money sinks (see Gold_sinks), and the intention is to take considerable amounts of cash out of the game.

Using a watch, sextant and chart in your house gives your location to the very very southeast of the map.