Tutorials/Underground Home

This tutorial explains how to make an Underground Home or base. The finished result will be a base with an entrance in the side of a mountain that has stairs going downwards, several rooms, and a mine.

Advantages of Underground Homes
Building an Underground Home has several advantages, especially on SMP.
 * Underground homes with no visible entrances are hard to find on SMP, without knowing the exact coordinates of the place to remove the stone or dirt blocking entrance to your home. This is useful for preventing players from stealing your items on SMP servers.
 * Underground bases do not require much building materials or tools—just a pickaxe and a shovel.
 * While building an underground base, you are likely to come across iron and coal ores, caves, and maybe even dungeons.
 * Underground base owners don't often have to worry about Creepers or Endermen on the surface.
 * Building a mine from an underground home doesn't take nearly as much digging as it would if you were building one from the surface; you may not even need a mine, as you collect minerals while digging out the rooms of a base.
 * Simple underground bases are very easy to build, and making them more complex isn't hard at all. You'll never have to move because of your home being too small or simple.
 * While building an underground base, you don't have to worry about monsters pouring in through openings in your unfinished base, unless you are right over a cavern.
 * Underground farming is easier. No animals will come, no fences are needed.
 * Since there are no animals spawning in caves, making a minecart rollercoaster is much easier than on land (because the animals may get stuck in the minecart or they might get in the way unless you have it in the air.)
 * Due to the time and effort of mining, you will undoubtedly get a large mountain of cobblestone as you dig, potentially being able to turn it into other structures on the surface.
 * You could decide to section off part of a cavern which would considerably reduce mining time!
 * When it becomes night time, you can mine and the monsters won't affect you.

Disadvantages of Underground Homes

 * When building a mine from an underground base, you will be constantly attacked by aggressive mobs, unless you're frequently placing torches or are on peaceful mode.
 * Accidentally hitting a lava lake while building an underground base can wreak havoc upon you. This would not be a problem on a freestanding home.
 * Many griefers target underground homes, especially as they are padded with weak materials. This will leave you susceptible to primed TNT explosions when you enter or exit your house.
 * Building an underground home is harder work than a freestanding home, as the player must remove blocks stopping its path to make more rooms.
 * You must go above ground to find loot from passive mobs (unless you decide to add a Mob farm to your home).
 * Depending on how complex the house is, it's entirely possible to get lost and need the assistance of an emergency exit.
 * Some people have Hacked Clients, they could turn on X-Ray and find your house, however this is less likely than somebody raiding a surface home.

Optimum Solution

 * Building a freestanding, above-ground home with an underground base connection is a very good idea.
 * Doing this will let you have quick access to your mine.
 * You also have an easy way to get animals with a freestanding home.

Disadvantages of A freestanding-underground house
They can also see it with an X-Ray mod or texture pack, making all your hard work irrelevant.
 * Griefers will now know where your underground base is, unless it is very secret (such as a lever activated wall or something with a pressure plate).

Preparation
Building an underground home requires little preparation on your part, and can be easily done on one's first or second night. If you've just begun a new map, collect lots of wood, maybe fifteen to twenty logs. Once the sun is about half way in the sky, craft a wooden pickaxe. Carve out some stone, and make a stone pickaxe and stone sword as soon as possible.

Now, find a good location for your new home. This location should be at the base of a mountain that is at least five blocks high, preferably more. The mountain should be made of stone, not dirt. Dirt has very low explosion resistance, and your home may be prone to creeper explosions, however rare they may be underground, and remember not to build with sand or gravel, as it will fall into your home. Mountain biomes are very good places to build underground homes. If you can find caves on the mountain that is even better.

As soon as you have a spot picked out, write down the coordinates (displayed by pressing F3 or Fn+F3, depending on your computer).

Alternatively, here is a list of items you may need:
 * 3 (or more) stacks of torches.
 * At least 3 Stone Pickaxes. Iron is even better!
 * Some food in case you get hungry.
 * A Crafting Table and a Furnace in case you run into some Iron Ore or your Pickaxes break.
 * Two or three chests to keep items you find.
 * If you have redstone and a bow, a Dispenser might be helpful to temporarily block off the entrance or store items.
 * At least 3 Stone Swords. As picks, iron is even better! (exp. 1)
 * If you're far enough in the game, a Bucket or two are nice to have.

(exp. 1): You don't know what the map generator can make, so you can run into a Cavern or a Dungeon while digging!

Building the Main Hall and Kitchen
As soon as you have the coordinates written down, use your pickaxe to make a hole in the side of the mountain. Then, cover it up with a door, dirt, cobblestone, stone, or something else. Now make a hallway that is two blocks wide, and three to six blocks tall. The hallway should go on for four or five blocks at the same level it did before. Make the hallway go downwards in a stair-like fashion — dig a block down, carve out the next space, dig another block down, and so on. The roof should also slope downwards at the same rate as the floor.



Once you've gotten to a good location (anywhere from ten to twenty blocks below where you started the sloping floor), stop going downwards. Continue on with the same hallway, but stay at the same level for four or five blocks. Now, stop digging your underground base and carve a 2x1 hallway that branches off the main one. This hallway should go on for only one or two blocks, then open up to a larger room, maybe 10 wide and 5 long, that has a higher ceiling. In this room, place a Crafting Table, one or more furnaces, and a chest. This room will serve as your kitchen/storage area. Put a bed in this room, too. Soon, you'll have more rooms to put your bed in, but the storage room will do for now.

With your Crafting Table, carve some cobblestone stairs. Place the stairs to that you can walk up to the top of your base without having to jump for every step up.

Now that you have plenty of cobblestone from all the carving, and hopefully have some wood, it's time to deal with your entrance, if you haven't already. If you're on an SMP server, and are afraid of people stealing your things, heat up some cobblestone in the furnace, and go back up the stairs. Otherwise, bring up a wooden door.



Replace your entrance with the door or stone. If you want, you can use double doors.

If you used stone, every time you enter/exit the base, you're going to have to replace the stone you remove to do so with more stone. This way, only you will be able to easily find the entrance to your base (with coordinates). You now have an Underground Base!

Bedroom and Mine
Now that you've built the kitchen and started on the main hall, it's time to make yourself a bedroom. Continue the main hall with stairs ten to twenty blocks down, then have a level area about five long like we did before. This time, hollow out two blocks on the side of this level part of the Main Hall, so you get a room that's six feet wide. This will be your main room, and will have all the halls that branch off to other places.



At the end of the hall/room, use your pickaxe to make a mine. The mine should be only one block wide, and should go down to Level 15 or so. It doesn't matter how you get down there, whether it be spiral or via a straight line. If you see any caves, put a door or something else marking them to come back to later, and then change the path of your mine or build a safe area in the cave to run your mine through. Once you hit somewhere below level 19 and level 13, use any mining skill of your choice to try to get yourself precious iron and diamonds. Since your mine probably isn't too far from your main room, make cobblestone stairs for easy access.

If you think you've found a cave, make a separate mine (with a door!) leading to it. Caves make it easy to find ores without much work. Not to mention dungeons, which can be used for monster spawner traps, and have a nice collection of loot. If you have a lot of cave systems, making a standard mine might not be necessary until you've explored them all.

It's time to make yourself a bedroom. From the main room, make a one-block-wide hallway about five blocks long. Do the same on the other side. Now, you can make rooms that branch of your hallway, including a bedroom. Make sure your rooms don't run into the mine.

If you'd like, you can also just build rooms directly off the main room. Now, make a bedroom for yourself. It should have adequate lighting, a bed, a chest, a workbench, and a furnace.

You can make additions to the bedroom and decorate it before making your next rooms.

Additions
You now have a basic underground house. It can always use a lot of additions. Be creative! Here are some ideas:


 * Make Additional Bedroom(s)
 * Guest Bedrooms are an excellent addition to an underground home if you are on an SMP server and allow others into your home. If not, you can still make more bedrooms on different floors of your house. This way, you don't have to walk all the way down just to access a bed. And if you have wolves, you can make them their own bedrooms (or kennels) to stay in.
 * Make an Above-ground Base
 * If you feel like you're running out of room underground, or you just want some sunlight, you can make an above ground home that connects to your underground place. This is not recommended if you're on SMP and don't want others to find your base.
 * Make a Furnace Room
 * Craft as many furnaces as you want, and make a room full of them.
 * Make a Themed Room
 * If you want a little bit of above ground underground, make a themed room with materials from above ground. Ideas: Nether Room (complete with portal!), Desert Room, Frost Room (inventory hack for ice, or collect it with the silk touch enchantment), Forest Room, Void Room (the floor is made of the void except for one block), Bomb Room and Cake Room.
 * Make a Farm
 * Make wheat, sugar cane, tree and cactus farms. You can make a multi-level farm by placing alternating rows of dirt and water on top, then having the water fall down into another row below.
 * Make a Panic Room and Escape Hatch
 * A panic room and/or an escape hatch is especially useful if you are on SMP or have multiple homes that you might want to escape to without walking above ground. Make a thick room out of explosion-resistant material (such as Obsidian), with a hidden entrance that will take you to another base. The disadvantage of this in SMP is that people might find either one of your escape passageway entrances, and then have access to both of your bases. Note: Placing chests in here is a good idea to store your valuables. They will be explosion resistant to TNT.
 * Make a Panic Self-Destruct Sequence
 * If people are coming to kill you, you can set up a TNT sequence. Pulling a lever can crank up four blocks of TNT to blow up in your house. This is useful if you want to kill any griefers in your house, or want to protect a special room from intruders.
 * Make a Storage Cupboard
 * Have too many leftover cobblestone stacks from when you were making your home? Or if you need a hidden room from thieves to put your precious ingots and gems? Or are your general chests just naturally popping items out? Either ways, creating a 4x4 room with corners filled in can make a great storage room. Just fill in the 2 block wide gaps with double chests and then unload. If those are bursting, then, expand your storage room!!
 * Make a Wall Safe
 * Wall safes are good for protecting from griefers with modding that lets them target chests, as you only need the two slots provided by a furnace to store your diamonds and gold. All you need to do is drill a hole in the wall, put in a furnace, store your items in the slots, and put whatever block was there back over the furnace. You can also surround a chest in iron ore. X-rayers will be less likely to find it, because most xrays show iron ore.
 * Make a Fake Path
 * A fake path is useful if your base is a Freestanding one, or if griefers find your house. You make path and mark it with signs saying "Valuables" or "Treasure Room" and when they walk into it, thinking they can steal, you put a pressure plate, and wire it to TNT, and they disappear. You can even put some chests in it to make it look like it is real. This is not recommended because you may blow up a part of your house. A good idea is to line it with obsidian so they blow up, not your house. If you are absolutely sure that there are griefers in your house, you can make a large chest and fill it full of dirt in the formation of the word "fail". Make sure you blow up the room though, for if you don't they will be enraged, usually killing you and destroying your bed.
 * Make a breeding room
 * If you make a shaft to the surface with a 2 block deep pit of water underneath it, you can lure animals in and breed them so you don't have to go to the surface. You should make iron armor and use bread instead of chicken, beef or pork. Make sure to seal the shaft so monsters or griefers don't fall in.
 * Create a Fish Pond
 * Start with a spacious room (about 12 long and 9 wide is about right) and dig a pit 3 or more blocks deep that covers most of the room. Leave a surface by the entrance so you can fish. Put a layer of blocks on the 2nd to first block so that you get a 1 deep pit. Fill that with water to make a spring and eliminate the layer of blocks you added. You should be able to fish now. Optional: Lead grass or inventory hack, put grass around your pond, and bonemeal the grass to give the impression of reeds or cattails growing along the edge of the pond.

If you're on a Server
If you're on a server (SMP) and you're digging through the side of a mountain, place it back so no one knows your home is camouflaged. Either put stone or dirt (about 20 pieces if anyone is digging for dirt) in its place. Make sure you're not being spied or followed because griefers may grief and/or steal your underground house. Don't put Wood there or Cobblestone or anything else because people will mine there while you're gone elsewhere gathering resources. For an extra safety measure, surround each chest with Stonebricks or Wood (any kind as long as its not Wooden Planks), this way even with the x-ray mod you wont be able to see the chest. Another idea with making an underground home on servers is to put its entrance in a jungle. This way you can use vines to diguise the entrance and most griefers won't really look there because of someof the lag. Another idea is to disguise the entrance in an infinite watersource and have some sticky pistons that move away.

Mountain Biomes Underground Homes
These homes are underground homes built into the sides of mountains in mountain biomes. There are many more opportunities than other types of underground homes. The advantages to these homes include the normal advantages for underground homes plus: Negative things about building a mountain biomes underground home: With houses built into mountains, you could essentially hollow an entire mountain and build an entire complex that looks like nothing from the outside.
 * The ability to add windows to your house
 * Natural lighting
 * You can build cool bridges between mountains to either:
 * Make an entrance
 * build your home on the bridge
 * You can make many entrances to your home easily
 * Appreciation for the surrounding biomes
 * Easy grieving target in SMP
 * Mobs can easily get into your house
 * You can't find the valuable materials high up
 * More actual mining in required

Helpful tips on house placement

 * As you may know, there are Modded Clients out there, to avoid most cases of X-rayers finding your house, create the house at bedrock level.
 * It is good to make bases under known griefed villages or griefed bases.
 * A ladder below dirt or sand block that is destroyed before entering or exiting your base helps prevent griefers.
 * It is also good to make your enterence next to lava lakes or under the ocean to prevent unwanted guests. Just don't fall in the lava.