Construction training

Construction is an expensive skill to train. At low Construction levels, players typically make their own planks, use clay or limestone, and explore different rooms and furniture. To advance, most players use oak, teak, or mahogany planks to build and remove oak larders, driftwood prawnbrokers, or mahogany tables.

All constructed objects will always result in a loss of money, regardless if you make the planks or buy it off the Grand Exchange.

Typical costs for Construction experience vary from (using player-made oak planks) to  coins per experience point (using mahogany planks bought from the Grand Exchange).

Items and bonuses
Due to the cost of training construction, it is recommended to use bonus experience or other experience boosting items, such as the Constructor's outfit, sculpting chisel, and the clan avatar skilling boost. Players should also consider unlocking the scroll of proficiency for a chance to save a plank when using 3 or more.

Sculpting chisel
A sculpting chisel is obtained as a reward from the Distraction and Diversion God Statues. This can be acquired at level 1 Construction by building god statue in the same location for a total of four months (non-consecutive). A chisel will grant a +1 boost to the player's construction level as well as 1% bonus construction experience, which stacks additively to the bonus from the constructor's outfit.

Constructor's outfit
Similar to other skilling outfits, the Constructor's outfit will provide a total 6% bonus when the 5-piece set is donned. The set requires level 44 Construction to wear. However, obtaining the set can be quite time consuming as it is rewarded upon certain milestones in the Temple Trekking and Burgh de Rott Ramble minigame. To unlock these minigames the third quest in the Myreque quest series must be complete. If a player is pursuing the completion of all Morytania Tasks, they may consider doing this at level 44 construction.

Monkey butler
At level 50 Construction it is possible to obtain a Monkey Butler. However, this also requires level 60 Invention. The monkey butler can carry 26 items, but unlike his other butler counterparts, there is no cost as the player uses a mind-control helmet to domesticate the monkey Steve.

Scroll of proficiency
The scroll of proficiency is a Dungeoneering reward, which requires level 60 in both Dungeoneering and Construction. It will also cost 20,000 dungeoneering tokens to obtain. As aforementioned there is a chance to save planks once obtained and is broken down as follows: For a more detailed analysis please refer to the scroll of proficiency page.
 * 50% for normal planks
 * 25% for oak planks
 * 20% for teak planks
 * 10% for mahogany planks
 * 5% for protean planks

Understanding experience earned
Experience gained is calculated from the experience per construction material used. The experience gained from making 2 items with 2 oak planks is the same as making one item with 4 oak planks. Therefore, it is more efficient to make items requiring more supplies, as the cost per experience is the same.

Cost of earning construction experience
Most materials used in Construction cannot be made with skills and must be bought from suppliers or the Grand Exchange. Wooden planks are made by handing over logs and money to the sawmill operator or by using the logs in the Portable sawmill. Construction materials that can be made by the player are soft clay, molten glass, limestone bricks, 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 fireplaces (3 soft clay for 30 experience). Specialty items such as gold leaves, marble blocks, and magic stones can be bought from a specialty shop in Keldagrim or the Sawmill operator in the Ithell Clan District of Prifddinas.

After completing the appropriate Morytania Tasks, one may receive 30 normal planks, 20 oak planks, or 10 teak planks daily from Razmire Keelgan, potentially worth 990, 1200, or 900 construction experience respectively.

Planks
Notes:
 * Slightly different experience, cost, and cost / experience point are given for different metal nails.
 * *Protean planks stack within one's inventory.
 * **Can be sawn from protean logs at 1:1 ratio for a 5 gold coin cost each.

Non-Planks
This chart shows the experience given per object when each object is used. The cost per experience point is based on Grand Exchange prices.

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 6 Crafting experience.

Special logs
Special teak logs and special mahogany logs can be obtained randomly while cutting down their respective trees. These logs can be sold to a sawmill operator for for mahogany or  for teak. If you have two of the same type, the sawmill operator will convert your inventory of logs for free in exchange for the special logs. This can be used to help reduce the cost of training Construction.

Trip time

 * Note: This section does not apply if the player is using Servants.

With the correct choice of teleport techniques, very little running is required to make a round trip (either two-way or three-way). This means that the total trip time is very largely dependent on how fast the player can click and select various options. To maximise the XP earned per hour depends on balancing the fastest possible round trip (i.e. least clicks) vs. a slightly slower round trip maximising the XP earned per trip. Players, therefore, vary in their precise technique - fast clickers tend to prefer the fastest possible trip. Players on slow computers or poor-quality internet connections tend to prefer maximising the XP per trip. Note that because of the relatively low cost of teleport compared to the cost of an inventory, the teleport trip cost tends not the be a factor in an optimised trip plan.

Plan round trip to optimise inventory

 * To maximise experience per trip, you need to maximise the number of planks / logs you transport per trip.
 * If you are using a beast of burden, you need at least one spare slot to swap logs / planks between the two inventories at the Plank Maker. A technique is to drop one or two planks to make this space and pick the planks when done. Alternatively, you may decide that it is quicker to have a spare slot or two.
 * Bring materials in amounts equal to the highest multiple of the required materials to construct your items that are possible per trip (e.g., carry a multiple of 8 for larders, or 10s for Oak doors) as this reduces weight by not bringing extra material that won't be used. Alternatively, build something else to use the remaining planks (e.g. if you are carrying 26 planks, build two oak doors and then build two oak armchairs to use up the last 6 planks). With careful planning, this does not need to slow down a round trip very much.
 * Making Flatpacks can be a very fast way of using up almost any "left-over" planks. For instance "Make All" Oak drawers will use up any even number of oak planks.
 * If you are three-way teleporting, always maximise your inventory of planks. Bank your unused planks and when you have enough planks, skip the sawmill teleport for a cycle.

You cannot bring a summoning familiar in your house when you're in building mode.

Experience per trip
For number of planks carried. Higher numbers require a Beast of Burden.

Servants
An alternative to travelling between your house and a bank is to use Servants to bring things from the bank to your house. This is faster than travelling yourself because you can build while the servant is making the trip. Better servants make the round trip faster.

Servants have a right click option that allows the fetch-from-bank menu to be brought up quickly. Furthermore, the last request is saved, so the player can repeatedly ask for the same set of items to be brought without typing the specific quantity each time.

Hotkeys and minimal mouse movement
A game update in the week of March 10, 2017, allowed players to use hotkeys (also called keybinds) to navigate the construction menu, as announced here. This reduces the number of mouse movements per servant run from over 9 to just 3.

After right clicking to build on a hotspot, the client opens the window titled "Select a Piece of Furniture to Build" or similar. On this window, one option is to simply click on the desired item to construct. Another option is to press the number key corresponding to that item. Note that the items on this window are not numbered, but pressing keys works anyways, and this number corresponds to the order in increasing level requirement.

After building the object, one must remove it by right-clicking it. Pressing "1" is equivalent to clicking "Yes" to "Really remove it?" If one has moved the camera carefully, then one can right-click the hotspot / object without moving the mouse. This generally saves time because one does not need to aim the cursor. However, one should eventually right click the servant, and this involves moving the mouse. Again, the servant's dialogue can be navigated using only hotkeys. (See the Servant subsection below). Thus, with an appropriate setup, one only needs to move the mouse three times for each servant trip, with the rest of the procedure being accomplished with keystrokes and clicks. Beware of interface lag. Sometimes, pressing the right keystroke or click too early will yield the wrong action.

Remark: One may wonder why one needs a hotkey for the build window anyways. After all, the build menu can be moved so that the desired item in the same screen location as the hotspot. The reason that one needs hotkeys for the build window is as follows. First, it is very desirable that the hotspot / object can be right-clicked without moving the mouse. The only way to do this is to move the hotspot/object near the bottom of the screen. However, the build menu cannot be dragged to the bottom of the screen. Thus, the only way to achieve three mouse-movements per servant run is to use hotkeys for the build window.

Flatpacks
Flatpacks are recommended as a less intensive way to train construction. Flatpacks are made in a workshop on a workbench, and can be dropped afterwards. Flatpacks can be added to the action bar to facilitate dropping.


 * Flatpacks can be sold on the Grand Exchange, however, there is very little demand for flatpacks so do not expect them to sell instantly.
 * Flatpacks can be alched, but the return is less than the cost of the runes.
 * Flatpacks may be sold to Advisor Ghrim in exchange for coins in the treasury of your kingdom, after completing the hard Fremennik Tasks. In principle, he gives 10% of the material costs. How this is calculated is not clear, but the value of a flatpack is less than 10% of the GE price of a log plus the Sawmill fee. Since the Sawmill fee is fixed, this suggests that he values the logs at less than GE price but greater than the max store price.
 * Advisor Ghrim will not take noted items.
 * 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.
 * Because flatpacks can be made while not in building mode, items can be dropped. This may be the most convenient way to get rid of flatpacks.
 * Flatpacks are rarely stored if using a Servant because the return is marginal or worse given the additional cost of using a servant trip to bank them. However, if you value the flatpacks at Advisor Ghrim rates, higher value flatpacks can be worth banking. Use a BoB to accumulate enough flatpacks to make the servant journey efficient.

You need a workbench to make Flatpacks, requiring a Workshop (Level 15 Construction). Higher levelled flatpacks will require you to upgrade the workbench accordingly.

Flatpack return value
The following table shows the return on an example flatback item used for training (note that all items with the same plank requirements will have different GE Sell prices but the same Advisor Ghrim return). The poor return should be compared with the total loss if an item is removed or dropped.

Note: Advisor Ghrim will value slightly less than the nominal 10% value. As a snapshot, on a particular day, he offered a return on some teak items that valued the teak log at 63 coins, assuming he gives full credit for the Sawmill fee. On the same day, the GE teak log price was 148 (plus 500 sawmills) and a teak plank 766, giving a real return of 9.7% or 8.2% respectively.

Disabling Run
Disabling Run may be a good idea to slightly reduce the time loss when one accidentally clicks to walk on a square.

Free construction experience bonuses

 * Long bones and Curved bones can be turned into Barlak to get 1,500 Construction experience and 2,000 coins or 2,250 experience and 2,500 coins, respectively.
 * God Statues is a monthly Distraction and Diversion that grants Construction experience based on your level, in addition to Slayer or Prayer experience.
 * Completing daily challenges for Construction guarantees reimbursement for used planks (for most flatpack items) in the form of other items, as well as additional experience.
 * Harps in Prifddinas will give slow, but free construction experience.
 * Free players can level Construction to level 5. Unfortunately, they don't have any training methods for Construction so they can only level up by using lamps.

Historical (Seasonal) Bonuses

 * Royal Battleship Kits, commonly known referred to as an "RBK", were obtainable as a Treasure Hunter reward on several occasions. They were also a possible reward during Summer Beach Parties as via a Treasure Map. Players who still have this item(s) and are aiming to achieve 99 in the construction skill should use these at level 98 as this will yield the most experience because RBKs rewarded experience scales with one's construction level.

Alternative methods of gaining experience
Some quests grant Construction experience. See here for more details.