Construction

Introduction
Construction is a skill that allows players to build their own houses and provide the furnishings for them. It is also very useful in connection to many other skills, such as prayer, mining, magic, and crafting. The Construction skill was released on 31 May, 2006.

Purchasing a House
To begin Construction, players must buy a house by paying one of the many Estate Agents found all over Runescape. A basic house will cost 1000 coins, and will be in Rimmington by default. As a player advances in construction, more house locations will be made available as well as house styles. To change either of these, it is required to speak to the Estate Agent again.

Estate agents
Estate agents are located (identified with the house icon on the map) in
 * Varrock, northwest of the Museum, west of the Saradominist church.
 * Seers' Village, northeast of the bank.
 * Falador, between the furnace and the east bank.
 * Ardougne, west of the south bank.

House styles
Estate agents can also redecorate the outside of your house for a fee. Along with a total redecoration of a player's house, each house stlye comes with a unique tune that plays upon entering the house.

Traveling to a House
The most basic way to get to a house is by walking to a POH portal ( icon on map). From here a player will be prompted to either enter their own house, enter their own house in building mode, or enter a friend's house. It is also possible to use the Home Teleport spell to teleport directly into a player's own house if that player has acquired a magic level of at least 40.

Note: Players that choose to enter their own house through a portal can only do so through the portal location that they have bought from the Estate Agent.

House Portals Locations
Estate agents can move a player's house from its starter location in Rimmington to any of the other house portal locations identified by the portal icon on the map. These locations include Rimmington, Taverley, Pollnivneach, Rellekka, Brimhaven, and Yanille.

House Locations Advantages
There are also several advantages and disadvantages to each house portal location. Here is a complete evaluation of each portal location to help players decide which location is most usefull for advancing skills other than construction and as a use of teleportation to nearby towns:

Building a House
To build a house, a player must enter their house portal and go into Building Mode. This is the only way a player can alter their house by building rooms or inserting furnature and other objects into the rooms.

Building Mode
The house starts off with only a small room and garden, but more can be built later on. To build, go to Player Controls, select "House Options", and set the Building Mode to ON. Players will then see a ghost version of some furniture and doors called "Hotspots", where new objects can be built in the rooms or gardens that have already been constructed. Players can also visit a friend's house if the friend is inside his house.

Basic Materials
Many different items are needed for Construction, but some of the more basic ones include planks, nails, bolts of cloth, soft clay, and steel bars. Also, a saw and hammer are required to build anything while in Building Mode.

Planks
The most affordable way to level up the early levels of Construction is by collecting free planks which can be found at various spawn points as shown in this chart:

To make planks, one option is to go to the Sawmill operator on the south side of the Varrock lumberyard with the icon on the minimap. He can turn logs into planks for a fee. He also sells bolts of cloth, some nails, and saws.

As an alternative to the sawmill operator, the Plank make spell can be used to create planks for use in construction. Unfortunately, this requires a minimum Magic level of 86 and to have completed the Lunar Diplomacy and Dream Mentor quests (it uses the Lunar spellbook). While superficially it may appear to be a cheaper alternative to the sawmill operator, when you factor in the cost of the runes consumed (even using an Earth staff to eliminate the need for Earth runes) it will end up costing you more than the sawmill operator.

Note: This spell used to be quite slow to cast as there was a warning message every time it was casted. This was later updated, and players now have the option to turn off the warning message. The spell is now faster to cast than the Alchemy spells, and is also a good way of getting Magic experience.

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. Since higher level nails are expensive, most players prefer using iron nails or steel nails. However, with oak items and above, joints are used in place of nails.

Bolts of Cloth
Bolts of Cloth can be purchased only from the "Sawmill Operator" north-east of Varrock or from the grand exchage. Current prices for this item are posted in the table below:

Soft Clay
Soft clay can be bought from the Grand Exchange only for a price of 166gp each. They can also be made by taking mined clay and combining it with a bucket of water. Soft clay is used to make mostly fireplaces in Construction, but can later be used in the Study to make teleport tablets.

Steel Bars
Steel Bars can be created using the smithing skill. They can also be bought from the Grand Exchange for a price of 630gp each.

Advanced Materials
Once a player has developed a higher Construction level, new materials will be availiable to use. These materials may be harder to get and much more expensive. Some of them include limestone bricks, marble blocks, gold leaf, and elf crystal.

Stonemason of Keldagrim
Players can buy advanced building materials from the Stonemason in west Keldagrim just southernmost corner from the bank. A complete list of items and their prices our shown in the chart below:

Limestone bricks can also be bought from Mort'ton building store for a price of 10gp; however, it is required that a player completes the Shades of Mort'ton quest first.

Players can also mine their own limestone west of Paterdomus (east of Varrock) or Arandar and use a chisel to make it into limestone bricks.

Garden Supplier of Falador
The Garden supplier in Falador Park sells a variety of different plants that can be used by players in their Gardens and Formal Gardens.

The following chart shows trees and plants that can be transplated into a normal garden:

The following chart shows hedges that can be transplated into a formal garden:

The following chart shows flowers that can be transplated into a formal garden:

Taxidermist of Canifis
Players can get monster heads, which are randomly dropped from monsters. These can be turned into trophies from the Taxidermist in Canifis. These trophies can then be put in Skill halls. Players can interact with the stuffed heads for some funny puns. The following chart shows the price that the taxadermist charges for each stuffed head:

The taxidermist can also stuff Big bass, Big swordfish and Big shark, which are randomly obtained through fishing the correct type of fish.

Sir Renitee of Falador
Players can buy maps, landscapes and portraits for decoration by talking to Sir Renitee 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. You may also make steel and rune full helmets into Heraldic with your crest.

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

Rooms
There are many different types of rooms that can be added to a house. When a player buys a house, it will begin with a garden and parlour; however, more rooms can be added later. Different rooms will require different Construction levels and will cost money. All rooms in a house are the same size (8 squares X 8 squares). Keep this in mind when planning future additions to your house.

Number of Rooms / House Area
Until recently, a maximum number of 20 rooms and gardens could be built. This number was recently increased to a maximum of 30 rooms at level 99 construction.

There is also a maximum area of land that can be built on that increases with higher a construction level as shown in the chart below:

*IMPORTANT NOTE: It has been tested that one can NOT actually build on a maximum dimension of 8x8, even at level 99. This is because even though the maximum area of the ground reaches 9x9, one is not allowed to build rooms in the edges and corners - hence, the actual maximum area of the house itself can be only 7x7.

Servants
To hire a servant, players must have at least two bedrooms. Servants are hired in the north-easternmost building in Ardougne. 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 or her service is. After using a servant's services seven times, you will be asked to pay him or her again. After using a servant's services eight times, you are required to pay him or her or the servant will quit without giving you the items they are carrying for you from their last trip. The items will be deposited in your bank if the servant is fired.

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 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 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.

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 butler to exchange for un-noted||||52||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 dueling ring to bank. Same as strategy 1 in all other respects (Dueling rings and willow logs assumed to be largely free in calculation)||0||52||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.
 * }
 * 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.
 * }
 * 5||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 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 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 || 140 ||
 * Soft clay || 10 ||
 * 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 ||
 * }

It should be noted that using a sacred clay hammer will double the experience points given as long as you build the items directly and not on the workbench.

Get there fast

 * {| 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 repair benches each trip gaining over 1.5k xp 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 wall s in your formal garden. You will use 22,096 marble blocks.*
 * }
 * 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 wall s in your formal garden. You will use 22,096 marble blocks.*
 * }
 * 80 to 99 || Formal Garden || Build marble wall s 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 (obviously not possible, continue using mahogany planks)
 * 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 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 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.
 * }
 * 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.
 * }
 * }

Total Supplies

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

Get there cheap
These 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 sizable 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.

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, placing monsters or growing plants) It will also work simultaneously with bonuses from tea (to get max of +6) or Evil Dave's spicy stew, allowing for a max of +9 to Construction!

The tea and Stew will not work together however.

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 gold sinks, and the intention is to take considerable amounts of cash out of the game.


 * The watch, sextant and chart cannot be used in your house, trying to use it will give the message: "The sextant doesn't seem to work here".


 * In RuneScape Classic, there was a skill that had no use called Carpentry. The skill today of Construction was an updated version of this dead skill.


 * Cursed You was the first player to get 99 Construction; to celebrate it, he hosted a house party which led to the notorious Falador Massacre.


 * When the skill was first introduced the log in screen was changed similar to how the log in was altered for Hunter. While the screen for hunter showed a jungle theme with small creatures, this screen showed a more constructive theme.  The most notable part of the screen was the old ladders and partly painted plaster walls.  Keeping with tradition there were two torches with the smoke forming rune symbols while changing colors.


 * The most common cape that NPCs wear is the Construction cape.