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 or even non-existent.

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 8 for oak and teak and approximately 11 for mahogany. These costs can be halved to 4 coins per experience and 5.5 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.

Level 1 to 16
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. You will need to re-enter build mode every time. 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.

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 in case they bend) to get to 16 construction

Level 16 to 33
After level 18, you will no longer need nails. Oak, teak, and mahogany planks are all used without nails.

Build 13 repair benches per load repeatedly until level 33. This gets about 1560 exp. per load, and you need about 260 oak planks.

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 4888 oak planks to get to 74 construction.

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 to carry the planks noted and use them on the servant. If you are using a keyboard with a number pad, you can type 5-6-Enter easily to enter 56 and have the servant bring you the most planks he can hold. If using the Butler, you can make 3 oak larders per round; if using the Demon Butler, you can make 4 oak larders per round.

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 silly 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 demon 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 close 12 seconds to build 2 doors; therefore, some people may choose to use the normal butler because he is slightly cheaper than the demon butler.

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 350k experience per hour. It will take 1303270 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 8 coins per 1 construction experience. Aim to buy oak planks when they are about 420 coins or less each, or teak planks when they are about 700 coins or less each.

Level 52 to 99 (Expensive method)
One of the absolute fastest way 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 400k experience per hour (these people often use a normal butler), while some get over 550k (these people use demon butlers). A few players are able to get over 600k 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.

Aim to buy mahogany planks when they are about 1500 coins or less each.

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 104M cash. Getting 99 construction with mahogany planks from a very low level will cost approximately 143M 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 more 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 1 to 3
Build a couple crude wooden chairs.

Level 3 to 10
At level 3, you can start making clay fireplaces. A recommended method to do this is mine clay from the mine near Rimmington and buy a bucket in general stores. You also could use a Bracelet of clay.

Level 10 to 17
Now you can make a pond in your garden. This method is faster and some believe that the clay method is easier from level 3 to level 17. To do this you should use the same method above with the bucket, which will get you these levels virtually free. Also, you could do this to get level 99 virtually free, however it would probably be faster to earn enough money to do it much faster before you could get past level 60.

Level 8 to 19
At this level, you should make wooden chairs in your parlour. They require 3 planks and 3 nails. Keep in mind you can train and decorate your house at the same time.

Level 19 to 31
At level 19, you can make a workshop. It is highly recommended that you make one close to the entrance portal. This requires 10,000 coins, but it will be more than worth the money. Once you've done this, make a wooden workbench (requires 5 planks and 5 nails). Now you should have used up all your planks, you'll be using oak planks from now on, which don't require any nails. You also don't have to go into the building mode any more for most training techniques. From this point on, make oak chair-flatpacks, use the teleportation method to restock on planks and bank all your flatpacks because dropping them costs too much time. Alternatively, you could hire a servant from the Servants' Guild in Ardougne.

Level 5 to 99
This method requires 5 limestone bricks to make, you should build decorative rocks in your garden. 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 its very slow.

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: 8 gp
 * Cost per construction xp with mahogany planks, no SC hammers: 11 gp
 * Cost per construction xp with oak planks, with SC hammers: 4 gp
 * Cost per construction xp with mahogany planks, with SC hammers: 5.5 gp


 * 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: 4 (This is possible in a skilling-only Stealing Creation game.)


 * SC hammers last for 185 mahogany planks or 416 oak planks. Therefore, you will need 20 of them for an hour of construction with mahogany, or 12.5 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. They are as follows:


 * Oak with no SC: 330k xp and -2640k cash per hour.
 * Oak with SC: 151k xp and -605k cash per hour.
 * Mahogany with no SC: 560k xp and -6160k cash per hour.
 * Mahogany with SC: 173k xp and -950k cash per hour.

The rates for the methods using SC hammers include the time spent in Stealing Creation getting the SC hammers.

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 1111k per hour should build oak dungeon doors with Sacred Clay hammers.
 * Players who value their time between 1111k and 2410k per hour should build oak dungeon doors without Sacred Clay hammers.
 * Players who value their time at over 2410k per hour should build mahogany tables without Sacred Clay hammers.
 * Mahogany tables with Sacred clay hammers are never the most efficient method to train construction.

Miscellaneous

 * 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 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 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
 * X
 * 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 &amp; 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 13 Crafting table 1s 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:


 * 22,096 Marble blocks (500 xp) * 0 coins = 0 coins for fastest experience (You must be kidding).
 * 78,917 Mahogany planks (140 xp) * 0 coins = 0 coins
 * 122,760 Teak planks (90 xp) * 0 coins = 0 coins


 * 184,140 Oak planks (60 xp) * 0 coins = 0 coins for cheaper slower experience

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

 * 250 iron nails
 * 100 wooden planks
 * 217,198 oak planks (the fastest way to obtain level 99)

Get there cheap

 * hese 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 sizeable amount of crafting experience.
 * Mine from next to Odd Old 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 to (Level 33 Construction). 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.
 * {Training guides}}
 * This is a profitable but time-comsuming method of training construction. First, mine clay to make clay fireplaces and make them up to level 15. Then, buy oak logs from the Grand Exchange (about 200 should do for now) and take them to the sawmill. The cost for making oak planks at the sawmill is less than buying planks from the Grand Exchange. Sell 100 of the oak planks you made for normal price on GE. You should have made a profit. Use the remaining oak planks to build repair benches in your house. OPTIONAL: Hire a Demon Butler as soon as you are able, and tell him to take oak logs to the sawmill. Repeat this process up to the desired level. It it very slow but it pays for itself, and makes a profit!