OSRS Construction Guide: 1-99 Methods, XP Rates and Costs

The fastest way to 99 Construction is gnome benches from level 77, and the cheapest way is Mahogany Homes contracts.

Updated October 2026: XP rates and costs use 10 October 2026 Grand Exchange prices, and Sailing ship parts now also give Construction XP.

XP/hr figures are estimates. They assume steady play with your materials banked in advance. Gold figures use Grand Exchange prices from 10 October 2026, so you can price your target level before you buy a single plank.

The fast route is the first four rows, with bookcases from 4 and optional oak builds from 19 to 22. The 1-33 row shows the chair figures. The cheap route is the last two rows, with Novice contracts at 20 as an optional step between them.

Contracts also give ironmen about two and a half to three times the XP from every plank. Level 99 takes 13,034,431 XP, and every build in this guide is members-only.

Pick your Construction route in 30 seconds

• Brand new to Construction: read the starting section just below first. It covers the house, the tools and the cheapest way to get planks into your house.
• Lots of gold, little time: take the fast route. Mahogany tables from 52 and gnome benches from 77 cost the most per XP, and the benches need a superior garden.
• Some gold, some time: use oak larders from 33 and oak doors from 74. They cost well under the mahogany builds per XP and train at roughly half the gnome bench speed. If you have done Dragon Slayer II, mounted Mythical capes from 47 are cheaper again.
• Little gold, plenty of time: do Mahogany Homes contracts all the way, with Adept contracts from 50.
• Ironman or no-gold account: contracts again, because planks are the scarce resource. Jump to the ironman section.
• Just chasing a house unlock: find the level you need first, then read the section on where to stop before you commit to 99.

Starting Construction from level 1

Most of the methods in this guide are furniture that you build in your player-owned house, remove and build again. Gnome benches, oak doors and mounted Mythical capes all need a saw and a hammer in your inventory. For any other build, check its OSRS Wiki page for the tools it needs.

1. Get a house through the Daddy's Home miniquest. In it you help Marlo's father renovate a recently squatted house, and finishing it gives you a house at no cost (source: the Player-owned house page on the OSRS Wiki). Check the miniquest page on the OSRS Wiki for its materials and rewards before you go.
2. Buy a house only if you skip the miniquest. An estate agent sells one for 1,000 coins. You need a house before you can take Mahogany Homes contracts.
3. Keep your house in Rimmington early on. Phials stands next to the Rimmington General Store, close to the house portal. He un-notes items for 5 coins each, so you can bring noted planks and refill your inventory without a bank trip.

Later you can hire a servant to fetch planks for you. The oak larder section covers when that is worth it.

Construction training methods compared, with costs

XP per build is exact. XP/hr is an estimate that assumes steady play with your materials bought and banked before you start.

Here is how fast each method trains, and how long 1M XP takes:

And here is what each XP costs, and how much gold you burn per hour:

Verdict: gnome benches are the fastest XP here and Mahogany Homes is the cheapest. From 74, oak doors are the value pick. You pay about 40% less per XP than with mahogany builds and train at a little under half the speed of gnome benches.

Price note: gold figures use Grand Exchange instant-buy prices from 10 October 2026. Those are plank 134 gp, oak plank 517, teak plank 852, mahogany plank 1,999, steel bar 554 and steel nails 28 each. Plank prices move, so check the GE before a big buy.

Contract costs cover planks and steel bars only, and they leave out any rewards you get. House-method costs leave out the one-off cost of building rooms and servant wages. The oak larder section works out what the demon butler adds per XP.

What each build uses

Contract materials are averages per contract.

Each build needs the right room in your house, and each room has its own level and cost. Two of them matter for the late game:

• Gnome benches go in the seating space of a superior garden. You build that room at level 65 for 75,000 coins, and it has two seating spaces.
• Oak doors go in the door spaces of a dungeon or a treasure room. They take fewer clicks than most builds.

Check the level and cost of every other room you need on the OSRS Wiki before you plan around it.

How to work out your cost to any level

Any Construction calculator does the same sum. Take the XP you still need from the skill tab or an XP table. Multiply it by your method's gp per XP to get the gold, and divide it by the XP/hr to get the hours.

Here is a worked example with 5,000,000 XP left to go:

For a full 1-99, a few upper limits help. Each one prices all 13,034,431 XP at a single method's gp per XP:

Real routes land below these caps, because cheaper builds cover the early levels. Each level needs more XP than the one before, though, so the expensive late stretch carries most of the bill.

At the Adept pace of about 200,000 XP/hr, the full 13,034,431 XP would take about 65 hours. Beginner contracts are slower, so expect a contracts route to take longer than that. Add room costs, such as the superior garden, on top of any of these figures.

1-99 Construction leveling guide: the fast route

One number explains most of this route. Each plank type is worth close to a fixed amount of XP in standard furniture: about 29 XP per plank, 60 per oak plank, 90 per teak plank and 140 per mahogany plank.

Methods at the same plank tier cost about the same per XP. What separates them is how many planks you get through in an hour.

Levels 1-33: chairs, bookcases or early contracts

Start on crude wooden chairs (level 1, 58 XP each) and switch to wooden bookcases at 4. A bookcase gives 115 XP from 4 planks and 4 steel nails, about 5.63 gp per XP against 5.59 for chairs.

Bookcases should still train faster, because each one is a bigger build, so you need fewer build cycles for the same XP. No reliable XP/hr figure exists for bookcases, so time a few minutes of each if pace matters to you.

If you'd rather spend less, Beginner contracts run at the same estimated 50,000 XP/hr as chairs for about a third of the gold per XP (1.82 against 5.59).

Novice contracts open at 20. They pay 1,887.44 XP for about 9.84 oak planks and half a steel bar on average, roughly 2.84 gp per XP.

To rush 33 with oak, use oak chairs at 19 (120 XP from 2 oak planks) and oak dining tables at 22 (240 XP from 4). Both cost about 8.62 gp per XP. The dining table should be the faster build, because it uses twice the planks per build. Neither has a measured XP/hr, so check it against your own pace.

Levels 33-52: oak larders and your first servant

Oak larders open at 33 and pay 480 XP for 8 oak planks, at about 430,000 XP/hr. This is where Construction speeds up, and where getting planks into your hands quickly starts to set your pace.

A servant can do the fetching for you. There are five servants, and each one needs a higher Construction level and offers better service than the one before. The best is the demon butler, whom you can hire from level 50 Construction:

• Trip: he carries 26 items per trip and takes 12 ticks (7.2 seconds) to make one.
• Wage: 10,000 coins, paid every eight uses, which works out to 1,250 coins per service.
• Cost per XP: if one 26-plank trip counts as one service, a full trip of oak planks (1,560 XP of furniture) adds about 0.8 gp per XP, roughly 9% on top of oak builds. A full trip of mahogany planks (3,640 XP) adds about 0.34 gp per XP, under 3% on top of mahogany builds.

On the fast route his wage barely moves the bill. Until 50, Phials is the simple option. Check the servant page on the OSRS Wiki for the lower servants' levels and what your house needs before you hire one.

Levels 47-52 with Dragon Slayer II: mounted Mythical capes

If you have completed Dragon Slayer II, the mounted Mythical cape is the cheapest fast house build in this range. You need level 47, a Mythical cape, a hammer and a saw. You build it in the guild trophy space of the quest hall in your house.

Each build gives 370 XP from 3 teak planks. That is about 123 XP per teak plank against 90 from other teak furniture, which comes to about 6.9 gp per XP at these prices. Contracts, chairs and bookcases all cost less per XP, but they train more slowly.

• One cape lasts the session: the cape is listed as a material, but removing the mounted cape gives it back.
• Pace: at maximum efficiency the OSRS Wiki puts it at approximately 430,000 XP/hr. That matches the oak larder estimate, for less gold per XP (about 6.9 against 8.62).

Levels 52-77: mahogany tables (or cheaper alternatives)

Mahogany tables at 52 give 840 XP from 6 mahogany planks at about 800,000 XP/hr. At 14.28 gp per XP they're the first expensive method. Three cheaper options sit in this range:

• Adept contracts from 50: about 200,000 XP/hr at 3.08 gp per XP.
• Mounted Mythical capes: about 6.9 gp per XP at roughly half the table pace, if you have done Dragon Slayer II.
• Oak doors from 74: about 520,000 XP/hr at 8.62 gp per XP, with fewer clicks. Build them in a dungeon or a treasure room.

Levels 77-99: gnome benches

Gnome benches open at 77 and pay 840 XP for 6 mahogany planks, the same as a table. The difference is pace: about 1,100,000 XP/hr against about 800,000. They need a superior garden (level 65, 75,000 coins), and you use both of its seating spaces. If you buy in bulk, we stock 2k mahogany planks.

With a crystal saw in your inventory you can build benches from 74 instead of 77. The boosts section below covers it.

The cost per XP is identical, so benches win on paper. Each bench gives the same XP as a table, though, so the faster pace means more builds and more clicks every hour. If your bench sessions turn sloppy and your table sessions don't, tables can win on real XP per hour. Time an hour of each and keep the faster one.

How many mahogany planks for 99 Construction?

From level 52 to 99 you need about 92,200 mahogany planks: tables to 77, then gnome benches. Both give 840 XP for 6 planks.

Cost uses mahogany planks at 1,999 gp each (Grand Exchange, 10 October 2026), before servant fees.

The cheap route: Mahogany Homes contracts

Mahogany Homes is a Construction minigame built around contracts, and you need to own a house to take part. A contractor gives you a contract at a random home in Falador, Varrock, East Ardougne or Hosidius.

You travel there, repair or replace the marked items, then speak to the homeowner to finish. After that you go back to a contractor for the next one. Teleports to those four cities keep the travel short.

There are four tiers, and you can take any tier you have the level for:

Tier	Level	XP each
Beginner	1	865.01
Novice	20	1,887.44
Adept	50	3,275.58
Expert	70	4,373.37

And here is what each tier uses on average and what it costs:

Tier	Planks	gp/XP
Beginner	9.7 planks	1.82
Novice	9.84 oak	2.84 (about)
Adept	11.5 teak	3.08
Expert	12.71 mahogany	5.87

Material counts are averages per contract, which is why they aren't whole numbers. Some contracts also need one steel bar, and the gold figures count about half a bar per contract on average. On materials alone, every tier costs you gold.

Each contract also pays carpenter points, which you spend at the Mahogany Homes Reward Shop. Check the shop on the OSRS Wiki to see whether anything in it is worth working toward. The ironman section below shows how far each tier stretches a plank.

Is the Expert tier worth it?

At these prices, Expert is about 40% faster than Adept (about 280,000 against 200,000 XP/hr). It also costs about 90% more gold per XP (5.87 against 3.08). The answer depends on what an hour of your time is worth in gold.

Over 1M XP, Expert saves about 1.4 hours and costs about 2.8M more. If you value an hour above roughly 2M gp, Expert wins. Below that, stay on Adept.

Ironman Construction guide

An ironman can't buy planks from other players, so the planks you have are limited. That makes XP per plank the number that matters, and contracts win that comparison easily. Both columns show XP per plank:

Plank	Furniture	Contract
Plank	29	89.2 (Beginner)
Oak	60	191.8 (Novice)
Teak	90	284.8 (Adept)
Mahogany	140	344.1 (Expert)

Contracts give roughly three times the XP per plank at the first three tiers and about two and a half times at Expert. A practical ironman route:

1. Level 1: do Daddy's Home first for the free house.
2. Levels 1-50: do Beginner contracts, then Novice at 20. Some contracts need a steel bar, about half a bar per contract on average, so smith a stock of steel bars first. Our Smithing training guide covers that.
3. Level 50: move to Adept contracts, which use teak planks.
4. Level 70: move to Expert contracts once your mahogany supply keeps up. Otherwise stay on Adept.
5. Any level: save looted oak or mahogany planks for house unlocks you need right away, and send the rest into contracts.
6. Level 30: turn in any Long or Curved bones you've collected for a lump of free XP. This needs Death to the Dorgeshuun done first (see below).

This guide does not cover where an ironman gets planks in the first place. Check the plank pages on the OSRS Wiki for your options before you plan a route around one tier.

House furniture still has a place on an ironman. It's faster per hour, so it suits a short session when you have planks to burn and a target level in sight. If you have done Dragon Slayer II, mounted Mythical capes give the most XP per teak plank of any house build here (about 123).

Sailing builds that train Construction

Hull parts and repair kits for Sailing also give Construction XP. The level in brackets is the Construction level listed for each build. Check the OSRS Wiki for any other requirement, such as a Sailing level or a workbench.

Each set of hull parts uses 5 planks of its type:

At the plank, oak, teak and mahogany tiers, hull parts give exactly half the XP per plank that house furniture gives. At 10 October 2026 prices, wooden hull parts cost about 9.2 gp per XP and mahogany hull parts about 29.

As pure Construction training they're poor value. Any value they have lies in what you do with the parts afterwards.

Repair kits use fewer planks, and each one also needs nails and 5 swamp paste:

The planks and nails each kit takes:

Repair kit	Planks	Nails
Repair kit	2 planks	10 bronze
Oak	2 oak	10 iron
Teak	2 teak	10 steel
Mahogany	2 mahogany	10 mithril
Camphor	2 camphor	10 adamantite
Ironwood	1 ironwood	10 rune
Rosewood	1 rosewood	5 dragon

The top two kits are the interesting ones. They give 300 and 330 XP from a single plank, which is more XP per plank than any house build in this guide. Check plank, nail and swamp paste prices before you commit.

Two other Sailing builds also give Construction XP. A keg (level 25) gives 313 XP from 5 oak planks and 20 iron nails. A salvaging station (level 34) gives 372 XP from 4 teak planks and 16 steel nails, at about 10.4 gp per XP.

Extra XP: bones and the teak bench

Long and Curved bones (level 30)

Each Long bone gives 4,500 XP and each Curved bone 6,750 XP. You hand them to Barlak, a cave goblin in a small room on the west side of the bottom floor of Dorgesh-Kaan.

You can only enter Dorgesh-Kaan after you complete the Death to the Dorgeshuun quest. Barlak pays coins as well as the XP, and he takes all Long and Curved bones from your bank when you turn bones in.

Teak garden bench (level 66)

A teak garden bench gives 540 XP from 6 teak planks, about 9.5 gp per XP. On cost it sits between oak larders (8.62) and mahogany tables (14.28), which makes it a middle option once you reach 66. Mounted Mythical capes use the same planks for less gold per XP, if you can build them.

Milestones, boosts and the best level to stop at

Training milestones

• 1: Daddy's Home, crude wooden chairs and Beginner contracts.
• 19 and 22: oak chairs and oak dining tables.
• 20: Novice contracts.
• 30: Long and Curved bones give XP, once you can reach Dorgesh-Kaan.
• 33: oak larders, the first fast method.
• 47: mounted Mythical capes, if you have done Dragon Slayer II.
• 50: Adept contracts and the demon butler.
• 52: mahogany tables.
• 65: the superior garden (75,000 coins), which gnome benches need.
• 66: teak garden benches.
• 70: Expert contracts.
• 71 and 74 with a crystal saw: oak doors and gnome benches.
• 74: oak doors.
• 77: gnome benches, the fastest method in this guide.
• 84 with a crystal saw and spicy stew: the crystalline portal nexus. With the saw and a trimmed cup of tea, the same build needs 86.
• 90 with spicy stew, 92 with a trimmed cup of tea, or 95: the spiritual fairy tree. The crystal saw does not help with it.
• 99: 13,034,431 XP.

What level should you stop at?

For many accounts the useful target is the level that unlocks the house features they want. The boost table on the Player-owned house page on the OSRS Wiki sets two late targets:

• Crystalline portal nexus: at 84, a crystal saw (+3) and spicy stew (+5) let you build it. If you would rather avoid spicy stew, a trimmed cup of tea with the saw works instead but needs 86.
• Spiritual fairy tree (a spirit tree and fairy ring in one): this needs 95, or 92 with a trimmed cup of tea, or 90 with spicy stew. The crystal saw does not apply to it, so 84 or 86 does not reach it. Spicy stew boosts vary, so if you plan around 90, be ready to try more than once.

If you want both features, your real target is 90 with stew, 92 with tea, or 95 with no boost. If the portal nexus is all you need, 84 or 86 is enough. See our Portal Nexus guide for the teleport hub, and check any other feature you care about on the wiki.

Then use the cost section above to price only the XP you need. Each level costs more XP than the last, so stopping a few levels early saves far more gold than the gap suggests.

Construction boosts

The boost most players train with is the crystal saw. Its seed is a reward from The Eyes of Glouphrie quest. With the saw in your inventory you can build furniture up to 3 levels above your Construction level, so oak doors and gnome benches open at 71 and 74.

• Saw-and-hammer builds only: it can't help you build rooms or plant in a garden. The saw won't get you to 65 for the superior garden or help with the spiritual fairy tree.
• No contract tiers: it can't get you into a higher tier of Mahogany Homes contracts.
• Stacks with visible boosts: with a +5 from spicy stew you can build up to 8 levels above your level. Spicy stew boosts vary, so the wiki notes that players more often pair the saw with a trimmed cup of tea for +6.

Make sure a temporary boost lasts long enough to finish a build before you buy materials for it.

Leagues

This guide covers the main game. Leagues use their own rules, so these costs and rates don't carry over.

FAQ

How do I start Construction in OSRS?

Do the Daddy's Home miniquest, which gives you a house at no cost. If you skip it, buy a house from an estate agent for 1,000 coins. Carry a saw and a hammer, which builds such as gnome benches and oak doors need, and start on crude wooden chairs or Beginner contracts.

What is the fastest Construction XP in OSRS?

Gnome benches from level 77, at about 1,100,000 XP/hr with steady play and your materials banked in advance. You build them in a superior garden, and a crystal saw lets you start at 74. Mahogany tables from 52 cost the same per XP at about 800,000 XP/hr, with fewer builds per hour.

What is the cheapest way to train Construction?

Mahogany Homes contracts. Beginner contracts cost 1.82 gp per XP and Adept contracts 3.08. Oak methods cost 8.62 and mahogany methods 14.28 at 10 October 2026 prices. Among the fast house builds, mounted Mythical capes are the cheapest at about 6.9, but they need Dragon Slayer II.

How much does 99 Construction cost?

It depends on the route. At 10 October 2026 prices, a route that never uses a method dearer than mahogany comes to about 186M at most. One that never goes above oak comes to about 112M at most.

Contracts kept at Adept or below come to about 40M at most, but they take about 65 hours even at the Adept pace. Room costs, such as 75,000 coins for the superior garden, come on top.

What level do I need for a maxed house?

It depends on which features you count. With a crystal saw, 84 (with spicy stew) or 86 (with a trimmed cup of tea) builds the crystalline portal nexus. The spiritual fairy tree needs 95, or 92 with a trimmed cup of tea, or 90 with spicy stew, and the saw does not help with it.

What is the best Construction method for ironmen?

Mahogany Homes contracts. They give about 89.2 XP per plank at Beginner, 191.8 per oak plank at Novice, 284.8 per teak plank at Adept and 344.1 per mahogany plank at Expert. Standard house furniture gives 29, 60, 90 and 140.

Can you train Construction in free-to-play?

Not with anything in this guide. Every Construction build listed here is members-only.