Construction training

This article gives tips on training the Construction skill. Construction is a Members only skill.

Introduction
Construction is, in general, an expensive skill to train. Methods to train without losing money are few.

At low level construction, players typically cut and make their own planks, or train with clay or limestone, and explore the different types of rooms and furniture the skill has to offer, but most players who seriously train construction to a medium or high level use oak, teak, or mahogany planks, building and removing doors, wardrobes, or tables, respectively, getting nothing in return for the planks expended. Even if the planks are made by the player, the player will still lose money from the sawmill or Plank make spell fees, and the player could of course sell the planks for their full value instead of using them.

Typical cost per one construction experience rates are approximately 11.6 for oak and teak and approximately 14 for mahogany. These costs can be halved to 5.8 coins per experience and 7.0 coins per experience, respectively, by using Sacred clay hammers.

Construction can be a very fast skill, sometimes giving hundreds of thousands of experience per hour. Construction may be considered either a hard skill or an easy skill depending on the criteria used to evaluate how hard or easy a skill is.

Possibly best method money-wise
If your portal is right near a dining room and you have a workshop nearby, as well as a servant, cut some oak logs outside your portal, ring the bell and ask for your logs to become planks, then run to the workshop. With a demon butler this will cost 6000gp for 24 planks and will grant you 1440xp (2880 with SC hammer). The easiest thing to build is four Carved oak dining tables. You may also ask the servant to fetch twenty-four mahogany planks and build 4 mahogany dinning tables.

Level 1 to 33
At very low level construction, you will not be able to 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. A much slower way to go get planks is to run to Falador, withdraw a full inventory of planks and run all the way back to your house in Rimmington. Some slightly faster ways are to move your house to Taverley, as the run time to the house portal is much lower, or to run to Port Sarim and travel to the Void Knight Outpost, then run back. To help, take off all of your armour, but you may take some weight-reducing armour if you have any. It is not recommended, however, as it still takes quite some time.

For the very first levels of the construction skill you will need to buy or make some regular planks and some 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're out of planks or you reach level 16. It would take 96 planks and nails (but make/buy more nails in case they bend) to get to 16 construction. If you're going straight from 1 to 33, it will require you to make 277 crude wooden chairs, which is 554 planks, and however many nails that follow.

Another possible way to efficiently train construction using the Rimmington house is to mine some clay in the mining area north-east of the portal. The player should then 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, get rid of 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 don't 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.

Level 33 to 52 or 74
You can now 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 16211 oak planks to get to 74 construction.

A recommended inventory and weaponry equipment to make the quickest journey with most effect would be as follows:

Any clothing, preferably lighter clothing or armour.

A staff of air / A staff of earth

Law rune (500-2000)

Earth rune (500-2000)

Hammer

Saw

Oak planks

This way, you will have the first FOUR inventory slots filled with neccessary items for teleport and Construction, and 24 slots (8 x 3) for constructing 3 oak larders per visit.

A Magic level of 40 is needed, and a Magic level of 45 (for Camelot Teleport) on the Standard spellbook is advised, for the quickest banking would be to teleport inside your house, with building mode switched on, to build 3 larders, then to teleport to Camelot and re-stock on your oak planks.

At level 40, you should go to the Servants' Guild to hire a Butler. At level 50, you should hire a Demon Butler. 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. A cheaper but slightly slower alternative is to move ones house to Yanille, where it will be very close to a bank.

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 should make oak larders to level 74 before switching over to oak dungeon doors.

Some players searching for the fastest possible experience in construction have suggested using teak planks for some of the levels before 52. However, the time it would take to switch from building oak larders to using teak planks is large compared to the actual time that it takes to get 52 construction. 40 to 52 construction may only take about half an hour building oak larders, and thus it would be a waste of money to try switching to teak planks just to save a few minutes.

Level 74 to 99 (Slightly cheaper methods)
After making oak larders to 74, switch to oak dungeon doors. Oak doors are the same cost as oak larders, but slightly faster experience per hour because 10 planks are used per building action rather than 8. If using a normal butler, 10 doors can be built 5 rounds. If using a demon butler, 13 doors can be built every 5 rounds. Whether you choose to use a normal butler or a demon butler depends on how fast you can build and remove the doors. The normal butler is gone for 12 seconds to get planks, while the demon butler is gone for 6 seconds to get planks. In the time the normal butler is gone, it is possible to build and remove 2 dungeon doors. However, many people find this difficult to do, and some people may spend longer then 12 seconds to build 2 doors. The carrying capacity of the normal butler (20) suits this perfectly, while the demon butlers extra spaces do nothing, at double the cost.

The best set-up for oak dungeon doors involves having a door that opens to a small space of two squares, and standing inside that space. With this set-up, your servant will appear right next to you if the door is standing when he appears.



Experience per hour rates for building oak dungeon doors vary widely among players. Some players get around 200k experience per hour (these people often use a normal butler), while some get over 300k (these people use demon butlers). A few players are able to get over 400k experience per hour. It will take 198,970 oak planks to get 74-99 construction.

An alternative to oak dungeon doors that costs about the same and gives perhaps a 3-10% greater experience rate is building Carved teak magic wardrobes in the Costume room, which can be done at 69 construction. 6 teak planks are used per wardrobe, giving 540 experience. This can be faster experience per hour than the 600 experience per oak dungeon door because you can build 4 wardrobes per round. Also, although the ratio of the cost of a teak plank to the experience it gives is slightly worse than that for oak, training with teak will cost about the same as with oak because less cash will be spend on butler fees. Teak planks are not very commonly used to train, however, because sometimes they are difficult to buy.

Ranging pedestals, which require 8 teak planks each, essentially cannot be used for training construction because your house will re-load every time you remove one of them.

Oak and teak both cost about 11.6 coins per 1 construction experience. Aim to buy oak planks when they are about 650 coins or less each, or teak planks when they are about 950 coins or less each.

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. 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.

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). A few players are able to get over 700k experience per hour. Interestingly, although practice helps, it is possible to get the full experience rate- the fastest experience in construction- right at 52, and potentially go from level 52 to level 70 in only an hour, or a bit over an hour.

It is 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.

Cheaper Training
Getting 99 construction with oak planks from a very low level will cost approximately 150M cash. Getting 99 construction with mahogany planks from a very low level will cost approximately 182M cash. One way to decrease the cost is to use Sacred clay hammers. This will halve the cost of training construction. Sacred clay hammers will be discussed later in the article.

Other ways to save money training construction include using entirely different methods. What follows is a guide to very cheap ways to train construction, although very few people actually use limestone all the way to 99 because of the very slow experience rate.

Level 5 to 99
This method requires you to build Stone fireplaces in your Bedroom (Uses 2 limestone bricks each). You can use this method for as long as you want, but keep in mind that it's a slow process, and costs more than the clay technique.
 * You can buy the bricks from the stonemason in Keldagrim, and get 651722 bricks and level 99 construction for merely 17 million coins.
 * You could save about 4 million coins if you buy from Mort'ton, however this is much farther from a bank.
 * If you mine limestone near the Odd Old Man, then use the Balloon transport system to get to a bank and back, you can then craft your mined limestone into bricks. This is practically free, however it's very slow.
 * Alternatively, you can mine limestone near the Odd Old Man TP home, use a portal to Varrock.

Efficiency Analysis of Oak, Mahogany, and Stealing Creation Hammers
This section is intended to help you choose exactly how you want to train construction at medium and high levels. Generally, you can 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 are obtained from the minigame Stealing Creation and double the construction experience received, but disintegrate after a certain number of planks used.

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


 * Cost per construction xp with oak planks, no SC hammers: 11.6 gp
 * Cost per construction xp with mahogany planks, no SC hammers: 14.0 gp
 * Cost per construction xp with oak planks, with SC hammers: 5.8 gp
 * Cost per construction xp with mahogany planks, with SC hammers: 7.0 gp

This is counting oak planks roughly 650 gp each, mahogany planks roughly 1910 gp each, and the use of the Demon Butler.


 * Number of oak planks used per hour, no SC hammers: 5500 (as stated earlier, this rate varies hugely from person to person).
 * Number of oak planks used per hour, with SC hammers: 5200 (this accounts for banking to get more SC hammers)
 * Number of mahogany planks used per hour, no SC hammers: 4000 (will vary hugely from person to person; however, this is intended to be of a similar level of speed to the 5500 oak planks per hour)
 * Number of mahogany planks used per hour, with SC hammers: 3700 (again, this accounts for banking to get more SC hammers)


 * 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, which is 25375 bonus experience. 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:


 * Oak with no SC: 330k xp and -3828k cash per hour.
 * Oak with SC: 180k xp and -1046k cash per hour.
 * Mahogany with no SC: 560k xp and -7840k cash per hour.
 * Mahogany with SC: 204k xp and -1428k cash per hour.

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.

Miscellaneous

 * If your portal is right near a dining room and you have a workshop nearby, as well as a servant, cut some oak logs outside your portal, ring the bell and ask for your logs to become planks, then run to the workshop. With a demon butler this will cost 6000gp for 24 planks and will grant you 1440xp (2880 with SC hammer).
 * Flatpacks are generally not made for training construction, but they 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.
 * Players who have achieved 99 construction may purchase the Construction cape from the Estate Agent in north-east Varrock.
 * Building mahogany table flatpacks 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 1k-1.5k each on the first few days the Construction skill was released. Today it would be ridiculous to use this method.
 * Flatpacks can be traded in at the Mobilising Armies minigame 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!!

Others
Building oak furniture at a workbench provides a nice balance of cost and experience. Players could also break down and build oak larders in their kitchen, which uses 8 planks each build and is thus as fast or faster than building oak furniture at your workbench which must be dropped.

Players are able to use noted oak logs with their servant (who will exchange them for un-noted oak logs) and then send him to the sawmill to get to 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 a player reaches level 40 or above, they should switch back to oak because the experience will be too slow after this.

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.


 * {|class="wikitable" width="85%"

!# !Strategy !Raw materials cost !Butler costs !Planking costs !Cost per experience point (larders/workbench) !Cost per experience point (rune or cw3 armour stands)1
 * 1
 * Buy oak planks for coins each, use them noted with your servant to exchange for un-noted
 * 32
 * 0
 * X
 * X
 * 2
 * Buy oak logs for coins each, use them noted with your butler to exchange for un-noted, and then send him to the sawmill
 * 104.2
 * 250
 * 2.63
 * X
 * 3
 * Use the Balloon Transport System to go from Castle Wars to Varrock sawmill (cost: 1 willow logs each time), cut your own oak logs and plank them yourself, using a Ring of duelling ring to bank. Same as strategy 1 in all other respects (Duelling rings and willow logs assumed to be largely free in calculation)
 * 0
 * 32
 * 250
 * 5
 * 3.5
 * 4
 * Use the Balloon Transport System to go from Castle Wars to Varrock sawmill (cost: 1 willow logs each time), cut your own oak logs and plank them yourself. Take House Teleport to do some construction work and use duelling ring to bank. Transport cost per log/plank is 840/24 or 35 coins.
 * 0
 * 35
 * 250
 * 4.75
 * 3.45
 * 5
 * Use same method as 4, but this time with teak logs from Manage Thy Kingdom.
 * 165
 * 35
 * 500
 * 7.78
 * n.a.
 * }
 * Use same method as 4, but this time with teak logs from Manage Thy Kingdom.
 * 165
 * 35
 * 500
 * 7.78
 * n.a.
 * }

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 about 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).


 * {|class="wikitable"

!Item !Experience given !Cost/xp
 * Plank & Nails
 * 29
 * Oak plank
 * 60
 * Teak plank
 * 90
 * Mahogany plank
 * 120
 * Soft clay
 * 10
 * Bolt of Cloth
 * 15
 * Steel bar
 * 20
 * Limestone
 * 20
 * Marble block
 * 500
 * Gold leaf
 * 300
 * 500 runes
 * 44
 * Molten glass
 * 1
 * Magic stone
 * 1000
 * }
 * Limestone
 * 20
 * Marble block
 * 500
 * Gold leaf
 * 300
 * 500 runes
 * 44
 * Molten glass
 * 1
 * Magic stone
 * 1000
 * }
 * 500 runes
 * 44
 * Molten glass
 * 1
 * Magic stone
 * 1000
 * }
 * Magic stone
 * 1000
 * }
 * 1000
 * }
 * }

It should be noted that using a Sacred clay hammer will double the experience points given even if the item is built on the workbench.

Speed Training

 * {|class="wikitable"

!Levels !Rooms involved !Strategy
 * 1 to 16
 * Parlour
 * Buy 250 iron nails and 100 planks then make crude wooden chairs.
 * 16 to 33
 * Workshop
 * Buy about 260 oak planks (no nails needed from this point on) and build 130 Repair benches(13 trip) each trip gaining 1560 experience points per trip.
 * 33 to 38
 * Kitchen
 * Build oak larders. You will need around 235 oak planks.
 * 38 to 46
 * Dining Room
 * Build teak (dining) tables (38 lvl), at your workbench(not the level 52 kitchen tables), which you will need around 420 teak planks.
 * 46
 * Workshop
 * Build a steel framed workbench (6 oak planks and 4 steel bars for each table).
 * 46 to 52
 * Workshop
 * Build carved teak tables at your steel framed workbench. You will use around 620 teak planks and 300 bolts of cloth.
 * 52 to 80
 * Workshop
 * Build mahogany tables at your steel framed workbench. You will use 13,302 mahogany planks.*
 * 80 to 99
 * Formal Garden
 * Build marble walls in your formal garden. You will use 22,096 marble blocks.*
 * }
 * 52 to 80
 * Workshop
 * Build mahogany tables at your steel framed workbench. You will use 13,302 mahogany planks.*
 * 80 to 99
 * Formal Garden
 * Build marble walls in your formal garden. You will use 22,096 marble blocks.*
 * }
 * }

Total Supplies

 * 500 iron nails
 * 100 planks
 * 510 oak planks
 * 4 steel bars
 * 1,040 teak planks
 * 300 bolts of cloth
 * 13,302 mahogany planks
 * 22,096 marble blocks

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:


 * 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

Get there Medium-Fast

 * {|class="wikitable"

!Levels !Rooms involved !Strategy
 * 1 to 17
 * Parlour
 * Buy 250 iron nails and 100 planks then make crude wooden chairs.
 * 17 to 33
 * Workshop
 * Buy about 260 oak planks (no nails needed from this point on) and build 1 pluming stand and 6 crafting table 1s in every trip.
 * 33 to 74
 * Kitchen
 * Build oak larders. You will need around 17,968 oak planks.
 * 74 to 99
 * Dungeon
 * Build Oak doors (level 74), at your Dungeon(not the other doors), which you will need around 198,970 Oak planks.
 * }
 * 74 to 99
 * Dungeon
 * Build Oak doors (level 74), at your Dungeon(not the other doors), which you will need around 198,970 Oak planks.
 * }

Total Supplies
This would cost exactly 0 coins if all materials are bought from Grand Exchange for market price.
 * 250 iron nails
 * 100 wooden planks
 * 217,198 oak planks (the fastest way to obtain level 99)