Valheim Building Guide - Our Tips

The Hammer and the Workbench

To build your first base in Valheim, you first need the Hammer to be able to build the Workbench. For the Hammer you need 3x Wood and 2x Stone. After you have collected the resources, open your crafting menu with a right click and craft the Hammer. Now craft the Workbench with 10x Wood and place it at the location where you want to build your base.

With the Workbench you can craft different structures for your base, repair items and create other items. Make sure you place the Workbench where firstly it won't get in the way and secondly you can only build in the white area around the Workbench. You can enlarge the white building area of the Workbench by placing several Workbenches next to each other. Now build a small roof over the Workbench to unlock its full function.

Statics and your first base

After you have chosen a nice building spot, you should try to even out the ground as best as possible with the hoe. Once you have done this successfully, open the construction menu and decide on a foundation. You can set wooden piles, which you connect with further wooden trunks to provide a good statics or you build a small wall as a "frame" for your later base. Of course, you can also simply build your base on the ground, but for this it must be nearly flat, which seems almost impossible due to the hilly landscape in Valheim.

Important: Pay attention to the statics when building your house, because the success of your building project stands or falls (hehe) with it. When you place structures, they appear in different colors to indicate how good or bad the statics are.

• Green: Perfect statics - no optimization necessary
• Yellow / Orange: Statics is still ok, but not optimal
• Red: Poor to no statics available and will collapse
• Blue: Foundations - will not collapse unless attacked

More Valheim Building Tips

Once the first walls of your base are up and the frame is completed, you can add more structures to expand your base. To place a roof properly, it is best to use a staircase attached to the outer wall. Once the basic framework of your base is built, you should also place a bed next to a fireplace so that you can spawn there in case you die. Once the construction of the roof is complete, you can easily tear down the stairs on the outer walls.

If you build a fireplace, you must be careful not to place it on wooden floors, because the wood will burn immediately. It is also advisable to build a chimney so that the smoke from the fireplace does not spread throughout your base and you do not get poisoned.

You should start your building projects during the day, as it is tedious and also dangerous at night. If there is no other way, you can use torches placed inside your shack to have more light. You should definitely keep an eye on the wood of your base, because if it turns dark, you need to repair the individual parts with the Hammer. Also use the Hammer from time to time to run it over house elements to see their condition.

Are you planning to build in lofty heights? Then you can't avoid building your shack on wooden piles and supporting it with them. If you build too high and your roof is not supported, your shack will collapse - at least during the next storm or attack.

You should not build near or even in water at the beginning, because wooden structures standing in water always lose half of their quality. Near water, it can happen that during a storm your shack will be flooded and everything will be broken.

Advanced building in Valheim

After you have gained your first experience in building in Valheim with your first and possibly other bases, it is time to try your hand at bridges and fortresses. Use the very strong stone foundations for this, but make sure that they are not suitable for horizontal building. Think about a large base for forts, since the stone foundations are really huge and can take up a lot of space otherwise.

If you want to build towers and authentic round huts, you can "fan" your foundations in Valheim by sliding the components into each other at will until you like the foundation for a round tower or the hut. Be aware, however, that depending on the positioning, the individual parts can lie unsightly on top of each other, and approach this with caution and a lot of sensitivity.

After we introduced you to the chimney as a smoke outlet, we would like to present you another variant that fits more authentically to the world in Valheim. If you plan to build a longhouse, you can plan and build a raised gable in the roof, so that the smoke from the fireplace first collects there and then slowly dissipates. This, of course, works for a full Viking feeling when people come into your house and a real, open fireplace provides cozy warmth.

If your house has a pointed roof, you don't really have to worry about protecting it, but if you build with a flat roof, you should erect many supports inside your shack so that the flat roof gets the desired stability. Additionally, flat roofs in Valheim are unfortunately not completely windproof, which ensures that your campfire can be quickly extinguished in a storm.

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