Construction training

This article gives tips on training the members-only Construction skill.

Introduction
Construction generally is an expensive skill to train. Methods to train without losing money are few.

At low-level Construction levels, players typically cut and make their own planks, train with clay or limestone, and explore different rooms and furniture. To advance, most players use oak, teak, or mahogany planks, building and removing doors, wardrobes, or tables, getting nothing in return for the planks expended. Even if the planks are made by oneself, one still loses money by paying for use of the sawmill or Plank make spell.

Typical costs for Construction experience vary from 5.5 (using player-made Oak planks) to 17 coins per point (mahogany planks bought from the Grand Exchange). Costs can be halved by using Sacred clay hammers.

Understanding Experience Earned
Most built items require multiple construction materials to make. The experience gained is calculated from the experience per construction material. I.e., the experience gained from making two of an item that requires 2 Oak planks gives exactly the same experience as a single item that requires 4 Oak planks. All items take the same time to make, making the single item (in this example) faster for the same experience and cost.

Cost of Earning Construction Experience
Most items used in Construction cannot be made with other skills and have to be bought either from suppliers or from the Grand Exchange. Wooden planks are made by handing over logs and money to the Sawmill operator. Construction materials that can be made by the player are Soft Clay, Limestone bricks, Molten glass, and Steel Bars. Even these items are normally used in combination with other bought Construction materials, except for a very few, low experience items such as Clay fireplace (3 soft clay for 30 experience).

To reach high levels of Construction, millions of coins are required.

Players must constantly balance the time taken to train against the time taken to earn in order to train. You earn construction experience faster at 17 coins per point than at 5.5.

The answer to this conundrum obviously depends on how fast you can earn money. But it also depends on how you earn that money. Some players earn money by ways that earn XP as well (e.g. Woodcutting), while others earn money by ways that earn no XP at all (e.g. picking Flax or Merchanting). Therefore, the "lost" time spent not earning construction XP but earning money to spend on construction, may have other value to you, not related to construction. It is this combination of factors - how fast can you earn money and how valuable is the time spent on earning money, that means the optimum plan is never quite the same for any two players.

Non-Planks
This chart shows the experience given per object when each object is used. The cost per experience point is based on the Grand Exchange prices. The cost of "free" components (i.e. the components that can be made with effort only) therefore shows what you would be able to sell those items for, if you had not used them on construction (a.k.a. lost opportunity for profit).


 * {|class="wikitable"

!Item !Experience given !NPC Cost !Cost/XP !GE Cost !Cost/xp
 * Molten glass
 * 1
 * n/a
 * n/a
 * Clay
 * 10
 * n/a
 * n/a
 * Soft clay
 * 10
 * n/a
 * n/a
 * Bolt of Cloth
 * 15
 * 650
 * n/a
 * n/a
 * Steel bar
 * 20
 * n/a
 * n/a
 * Limestone
 * 20
 * 10 or 17
 * or
 * Limestone brick
 * 20
 * n/a
 * n/a
 * Gold leaf
 * 300
 * 130000
 * Marble block
 * 500
 * 325000
 * Magic stone
 * 1000
 * 975000
 * }
 * or
 * Limestone brick
 * 20
 * n/a
 * n/a
 * Gold leaf
 * 300
 * 130000
 * Marble block
 * 500
 * 325000
 * Magic stone
 * 1000
 * 975000
 * }
 * Marble block
 * 500
 * 325000
 * Magic stone
 * 1000
 * 975000
 * }
 * Magic stone
 * 1000
 * 975000
 * }
 * 1000
 * 975000
 * }
 * }
 * }
 * }

Notes
 * You can turn Clay into Soft clay by adding water to it. This can be done in a player-owned house using a garden or kitchen water source.
 * You can turn Limestone into Limestone bricks using a chisel on it. This gives Crafting experience.

Planks

 * {|class="wikitable"

!Item !XP Given !GE Log Cost !Sawmill Fee !Total Cost !Cost/XP !GE Plank Cost !Cost/XP
 * Plank & Bronze nails
 * 29
 * + nail
 * 100
 * Oak plank
 * 60
 * 250
 * Teak plank
 * 90
 * 500
 * Mahogany plank
 * 120
 * 1500
 * }
 * Teak plank
 * 90
 * 500
 * Mahogany plank
 * 120
 * 1500
 * }
 * 500
 * Mahogany plank
 * 120
 * 1500
 * }
 * Mahogany plank
 * 120
 * 1500
 * }
 * 1500
 * }
 * }
 * }
 * }
 * }
 * }
 * }

Notes:
 * Slightly different experience, cost, and cost/experience point is given for different metal nails.
 * The cost of any extra transportation methods to get to the Sawmill are not included.
 * For information on the costs for using a servant to convert the logs, see Calculators/Construction Materials.

Costs for Different Materials (levels 80 to 99)
The cost to get from level 80 (1,986,068 experience) to level 99 (13,034,431 experience) is (GE Plank price):


 * 184,140 Oak planks (60 xp) * 0 coins = 0 coins for cheaper slower experience
 * 122,760 Teak planks (90 xp) * 0 coins = 0 coins
 * 78,917 Mahogany planks (140 xp) * 0 coins = 0 coins
 * 22,096 Marble blocks (500 xp) * 0 coins = 0 coins

Run to Bank
Running is free, but construction requires large quantities of materials, and generally POH Portals are not in particularly convenient locations for running to and from banks for materials. See POH portal for more information on the choice of location.

Teleport to House
Generally, after advancing beyond the lower-levels, players teleport to and from their house to a bank. Typically, this consists of teleporting to the house via runes (1 Law rune, 1 Earth Rune, and 1 Air Rune. To save one inventory slot use a staff - there is no disadvantage to this since the wielded item slot is otherwise unused in construction. To save two slots use a Teleport to House Tablet spell at greater cost.

Teleport to House costs coins for each cast with all the runes above;  coins when using dust runes,  coins when using a air or steam staff,  coins when using an earth or mud staff, and  coins when using a Law staff. A teleport tablet costs coins. All GE prices.

Teleport to Bank
All teleports built into the house are free once built. The closest teleport portal to a bank is Varrock (after selecting GE teleport location), but even closer is Edgeville from a mounted Amulet of Glory. Alternatively, use Ring of duelling to teleport to Castle Wars bank, then Balloon to the Sawmill for one possible three-way teleport (see next section).

Teleport to Sawmill

 * The cheapest way to the Sawmill is to run from the Grand Exchange (north, and then East along the outside of the wall) or Varrock East bank.


 * A Digsite pendant cannot be bought, but can be made with a Ruby necklace and a Cosmic rune while wielding a Staff of fire, which costs for 5 teleports.  This works out to be  coins each teleport.


 * If players transport to Castle Wars bank (using a Ring of duelling to teleport from the house - tradeable at a cost of /8= coins per teleport), then Balloon transport system can be used to the Sawmill for the cost of one willow log - another coins. Note because of weight limitations you cannot carry a complete inventory of logs without at least 3 weight reducing items, and you cannot use a familiar to carry extra items.

The digsite pendant teleport has slightly more running, but the ability to use a Beast of burden familiar normally outweighs this disadvantage for players able to make them.

Three-Way Teleport
A Three-way teleport is bank to sawmill, sawmill to house, house back to bank. The best is Edgeville Bank via Mounted Amulet of Glory, Sawmill via worn Digsite pendant, House teleport via Law staff and two runes, or Teleport tab if you want one extra inventory slot.

Maximising Inventory
To maximise the XP when teleporting, you must maximise the number of planks/logs you transport on each trip. You must carry money to the Sawmill and at one slot is usually lost carrying a teleport tablet. When you arrive at your house you need two inventory slots to pick up a saw and a hammer before starting, if you are not already carrying them.
 * If you carry the exact money you need for a trip, after using the teleport tablet you will have the two spare slots required.
 * Some players consider it quicker to always carry the hammer and saw since this means you do not have to take the time to get new ones each trip.
 * If you are making flatpacks, you do not need two spare slots to start, because you do not need to be in building mode and can therefore can drop 2 planks, and pick them up again later.

Flatpacks
Flatpacks are generally not made for training construction because they are slow experience. It is much faster to build and remove furniture instead. In addition, although flatpacks can be banked, they often give negligible profit. Flatpacks may be sold to Advisor Ghrim in exchange for coins in the treasury of your kingdom, after doing part of the Fremennik diary. Not every flatpack is worth depositing. Flatpacks can be traded in at the Mobilising Armies activity for Investment credits. These credits are used to get reward credits which can be used to get money or other rewards. If you choose money, you can get a refund of the cost of the flatpacks. Time spent training construction outside of construction mode (making flatpacks) gives chances of receiving a Strange rock, whereas you cannot get a Strange rock while in construction mode.

Sacred Clay Hammers
One way to decrease the cost of Construction is to use Sacred clay hammers. A Sacred clay hammer is a reward from the Stealing Creation mini-game. It is used to double the XP earned from each item constructed. However, it takes time to get the hammers, and if you count the time it takes to get the hammers, the overall construction experience rate decreases. Because training Construction costs money, any training regime must include doing something else, earning money to spend on construction. In this context, spending time playing Stealing Creation can be considered a valid part of construction training.

Time/Cost Analysis of Oak and Mahogany with Sacred Clay Hammers
This section is intended to help you choose exactly how you want to train construction at medium and high levels. Generally, you choose either oak dungeon doors or mahogany tables, and both of those methods can be done with or without Sacred clay hammers (SC hammers). SC hammers disintegrate after a certain value of XP gained.

For the purposes of these calculations, the following values will be assumed:

This is counting oak planks roughly 650 coins each, mahogany planks roughly 1910 coins each, and the use of the Demon Butler. Note these are not live GE prices.


 * Number of SC hammers obtained per hour: 5 (This is possible in a skilling-only Stealing Creation game.)


 * SC hammers last for 50750 construction experience each with oak planks, which is 25375 bonus experience, and 51415 with mahogany planks, which is 25690 bonus experience. (The experience maxes out mid way through the last mahogany table) Therefore, you will need 20.4 of them for an hour of construction with mahogany, or 12.3 of them for an hour of construction with oak.

Based on these values, experience and cost per hour for each of the four methods can be determined. These rates necessarily include the time needed to get the SC hammers for the efficiency analysis to be correct. The rates are as follows:

Again, these rates are not necessarily correct for every person. They are only approximate values assigned for the purpose of doing calculations. Some people are very slow at training, and some people are very fast. Also, prices change every day.

But based on the stated rates of the above four methods, an efficiency analysis can be performed. This is a mathematical way to find out what method is best for you, based on how valuable you consider your time to be (per hour). This is sometimes interpreted as the most cash you can make per hour- for example, by runecrafting double nature runes. However, it is ultimately your choice how valuable you feel your time should be. See the efficiency article for more details about this concept.

The results of the efficiency analysis are as follows:


 * Players who value their time at under 1819k per hour should build oak dungeon doors with Sacred Clay hammers.
 * Players who value their time between 1819k and 2246k per hour should build mahogany tables with Sacred Clay hammers.
 * Players who value their time at over 2246k per hour should build mahogany tables without Sacred Clay hammers.
 * Oak doors without Sacred clay hammers are never the most efficient method to train construction.

Level 1 to 33
At 1 to 33 Construction, one cannot have a butler. Train by using Rings of duelling or Amulets of glory to teleport to a bank to get more planks, and using a House teleport spell or tablet to get back to your house. The Mobilising Armies teleport works too for teleporting to a bank.

A slower way to get planks is to run to Falador, withdraw a full inventory of planks, and run back to your house in Rimmington. Some faster ways to bank are to move your house to Taverley because the run time to the house portal is shorter, or to run to Port Sarim and travel to the Void Knight Outpost, then run back. To help with the running, take off heavy armor and wear weight-reducing clothing. Running to the bank is much slower than teleporting.

For the first levels of Construction you need to buy or make planks and nails. Start by making crude wooden chairs in your parlour and removing them. The requirements for them are 2 planks and 2 nails. Repeat this process until you are out of planks or reach level 17 Construction. It take 96 planks and nails (but make/buy more nails in case they bend) to get to 17 Construction. If you are going from 1 to 33, it will require you to make 277 crude wooden chairs, which is 554 planks, and however many nails that follow.

There is another way to train at low construction levels that is cheaper than using planks, although it is slower. Have your house at Rimmington and mine some clay in the mining area north-east of the portal. Use a bucket to fetch some water from the well in southern Rimmington and use it with the clay to create Soft clay. Alternatively (and much more quickly) a bracelet of clay can be used. Repeat the softening of the clay until all the clay has been softened. Next, you should go into your house and build a Parlour for 1000 coins (if you have not already) and build a clay fireplace in it. Afterwards, remove the fireplace and repeat until you are at your desired level. The clay fireplace is a good choice because it gives 30 construction experience, however it requires level three to build, so follow the above process to reach level 3. This way, you can level up more quickly, and you do not have to travel as far. This is also very useful due to the expenses of gathering the materials can be kept very low. This is a highly recommended strategy for low-level and poor players to use.

You may also keep on building Oak dining tables and taking them down over and over till you reach level 33. This the fastest and cheapest way to train construction.

If you were to use a clay hammer you will get to level 33 spending only half as much.

Level 33 to 52 or 74
After level 33, you can make oak larders in your Kitchen. Creating these costs 8 oak planks. It will take 1760 oak planks to go from 33 to 52 construction building oak larders and another 16,211 oak planks to get to 74 construction. To build these at the fastest speed, a butler or demon butler should be used. At level 40, you should go to the Servants' Guild to hire a Butler, and at level 50, you should hire a Demon Butler though this is quite an expensive way considering demon butlers cost 10k per 8 uses. Servants can be used to bring you planks, thus speeding up your construction training. The fastest way to do this is right click the servant and select the option to fetch items from the bank. If using the Butler, you can make an average of 2.5 oak larders per round; if using the Demon Butler, you can make an average of 3.25 oak larders per round.

When making oak larders with a butler or demon butler, repeatedly request planks, then build and remove larders. With the regular butler, you can alternate 2 and 3 larders per round, whereas with the demon butler, you can build 3 larders on 2/3 of the rounds and 4 larders on 1/3 of the rounds. Carry cash, a hammer, and a saw.

It is possible to save money by not using a butler and/or by making the planks yourself. A possible method is to woodcut oak logs outside your house, then enter your house and send your butler to the sawmill to make planks. Then, make oak larders and leave to cut more oaks. Alternatively, do not use a butler and instead bank (teleport to Castlewars and then teleport back with Home teleport, or alternatively run to Yanille bank from your house in Yanille) after every 3 larders to get more planks. However, it will be much slower experience if you use either of these methods and the money saved may not be worth the extra time spent.

Teak Larders may be made at level 43, but they take 2 bolts of cloth in addition to 8 teak planks, and this extra material required raises the cost significantly and slows down experience due to the need to request 2 types of materials.

Players should stop making oak larders at level 52 if they wish to train using mahogany planks. Mahogany tables are the fastest construction experience in the game, but are not very commonly made because they cost more per construction experience than oak. Players who wish to continue using oak planks should make oak larders to level 74 before switching over to oak dungeon doors.

Level 74 to 99 (Cheaper method)
If you choose to continue using oak planks, you should switch to oak dungeon doors at level 74 construction. Oak dungeon doors take 10 oak planks each, whereas oak larders take 8 oak planks each. This difference makes oak dungeon doors faster experience than oak larders, because more oak planks can be used per construction action. This results in a higher experience per hour, even though the butler still only brings you the same number of planks. It is possible to get over 300k construction experience per hour with oak dungeon doors without Stealing Creation Hammers, but experience rates vary widely from person to person; some people only get 200k experience per hour, while others can get 400k experience per hour.

Level 52 to 99 (Expensive method)
One of the absolute fastest ways to 99 construction from level 52 is to build Mahogany tables in the Dining room, using a Demon Butler to bring you planks, building 4 tables per round, and 5 every third round. Players who are somewhat slow at building and removing tables may wish to save a bit of money by using a normal butler and building 3 tables per round and 4 every third round.

Experience per hour rates for building mahogany tables vary widely among players. Some players get around 450k experience per hour (these people often use a normal butler), while some get over 600k (these people use demon butlers). Some players are even able to get over 700k experience per hour. The theoretical maximum experience per hour with mahogany tables is somewhere around 900k experience per hour, and some players can get over 800k experience per hour. (All these experience rates are given WITHOUT Sacred Clay Hammers.) Interestingly, although practice helps, it is possible to get the full experience rate- the fastest experience in construction without spending ridiculous amounts of money- right at 52, and potentially go from level 52 to level 70 in only an hour, or a bit over an hour.

It is also worth noting that mahogany planks are the best planks to make using the Plank make spell, which is a very fast way to train magic, and therefore a player may find it convenient to combine this spell with building Mahogany tables to avoid a trading step.

Cheapest Methods
Other ways to save money training construction include using entirely different methods. What follows is a guide to very cheap ways to train construction. However, very few people actually train construction to a high level using methods like what follow because of the slow experience rates they give.

Level 1 to 33
Making clay fireplaces, as mentioned earlier, is a cheap way to train construction at low levels. Mine clay outside Rimmington, make Soft Clay, and enter your house to build the fireplaces.

Level 33 to 99
At level 33, you can build Stone Fireplaces in your bedroom with 2 Limestone bricks each. They give 40 experience each.

The fastest way to get the limestone bricks is to buy the bricks from the stonemason in Keldagrim, where they are sold for 21 coins each. The 650810 bricks needed for level 33 to 99 construction will cost about 17 million coins. This is only about 1.3 coins per construction experience, but this would take 24104 trips to Keldagrim bank without a familiar and would be a very slow process. Actually using the bricks to make fireplaces would be an even slower process.

You could save about 4 million coins if you buy from Mort'ton. The nearest bank is Burgh de Rott (after In Aid of the Myreque). However, this would slow down brick collection process even further and likely would not be worth the time.

The limestone bricks can be obtained for free if you mine limestone near the Odd Old Man, craft your mined limestone into bricks, and then use the Balloon transport system to get to a bank and back. then This is practically free, but would only further slow down the brick collection processes.

Summary
It seems that the most popular way to get 99 construction is to use oak planks. The second most popular way is to use mahogany planks. Teak planks probably would be third most popular. It is unclear if anyone at all actually gets 99 construction using limestone, as it will take an extremely long time. Even though limestone is cheaper, the vast amounts of time it takes could instead be used for doing other things (such as making money in various ways), and then this money could be used to buy oak planks for 99 construction with less total time spent than using limestone to get 99 construction.

Trivia

 * Building mahogany tables is some of the fastest consistent experience in RuneScape, maybe even the fastest, depending on what methods are considered consistent, and on how fast the player is at building mahogany tables.
 * Despite its speed, construction is not often trained for total experience because of its high cost and also need for the player to be clicking much more compared to other fast skills such as cooking, crafting, fletching (sometimes), and thieving (sometimes).
 * When construction was first released, it was rumoured that some of the first players to get 99 construction trained by building Skeleton Guards. This method would cost nearly 3 billion coins to get 99 construction, but used only pure cash, significant considering that oak planks were worth 1,000-1,500 coins each on the first few days the Construction skill was released.
 * It is often claimed that the fastest construction experience can be reached by using magic stones (for example, building Demonic Thrones) or by using marble blocks (for example, by building Marble walls). Marble does give 500 experience per block and magic stones do give 1000 experience per stone, which is much more than oak planks at 60 experience per item or mahogany planks at 140 experience per item. However, it costs over 650 coins per experience to train with marble blocks and over 975 coins per experience to train with magic stones. It would cost 8.45 billion coins to get 13 million construction experience using marble blocks, and 12.68 billion with magic stones. This is simply not feasible. Additionally, it is difficult to buy marble blocks and magic stones on the Grand Exchange, making buying them from the Stonemason in Keldagrim virtually a necessity; however, this takes time and would cancel out much of the higher experience rate these items would give. It has not been demonstrated that anyone has gotten a significant amount of construction experience by using these supplies.
 * Players are able to use noted oak logs with their servant, who will then head to the bank and bring back unnoted oak logs. The butler can then send the unnoted oak logs to the sawmill and bring back planks. This means that it is possible to train construction without leaving your house if you just have a banknote of oak logs; this is cheaper than buying oak planks, although it takes much more time due to the need to send the butler off twice for each inventory of planks used.
 * Players can make Skill Hall armour stands if they have either full Castle Wars armour or have 68 or higher Smithing. These stands provide either 135, 150, or 165 experience and take 2 oak planks plus the armour set each. The armour stands can be taken apart, allowing players to regain their armour. This allowed oak planks to be used for more than the usual 60 experience per plank (up to 82.5 experience per plank with rune armour). However, it is much slower than building oak larders or oak dungeon doors because only 2 oak planks are used per construction action.