Tutorials/Best building materials

When building houses, it's important to build the right materials. Otherwise, you may end up having a house that can be burned down easily and exploded easily, or you may spend tons of time to look for the supplies to build a house out of rare materials unnecessarily. This tutorial page contrasts different building materials, and additionally gives an overall view of the quality of the material.

Stone
Stone is overall a fairly strong and withholding material, and is very abundant. However, cobblestone has nearly the same properties as stone, but for a house of stone, you must smelt cobblestone, which many players think is a waste of fuel. Stone can be very useful if you want a specific style for your home, as it has a distinctive look to it, but if you don't care about the looks of your house or think cobblestone looks better, use cobblestone instead.

Pros

 * Very common - stone is by far the most abundant naturally generated block in the Overworld.
 * Has a relatively high blast resistance.
 * Cannot be destroyed by fire in any circumstance.
 * Stone is a renewable resource, as it generates when lava flows on top of water.

Cons

 * Drops cobblestone when mined, meaning that unless you have a Silk Touch pickaxe, you must smelt the cobblestone into stone.
 * Many players think that stone has a plain and boring look to it, and claim that other materials such as wood planks and stone bricks look better.

Dirt
Dirt is very weak, and isn't the most beautiful material to build with either. However, it is found on the surface of nearly all biomes, and can be mined up very quickly, even with a player's hand, meaning that it is suitable for beginners on their first night.

Pros

 * Abundant on the surface of most of the Overworld biomes.
 * Can be mined up very quickly with a shovel, and can be mined in less than a second even with a player's hand, making it easy to obtain lots of dirt very quickly.
 * Is not flammable.

Cons

 * Low blast resistance.
 * Has a rather unpleasant look for most styles of buildings.

Wood planks
Wood planks have a rather nice look and are inexpensive to make. They're blast resistance is lower than stone but higher than dirt. One of the main disadvantages of wood planks is that they are flammable, so that if a wooden house gets struck by lightning or gets lit by a lava pool, the whole thing may burn down.

Pros

 * One wood log = 4 wood planks, making wood planks inexpensive, as a whole stack of wood planks can be obtained by just cutting down 3 trees.
 * Has a relatively high blast resistance, though it's not as high as stone, mineral blocks, bricks, or purpur.
 * Comes in 6 different yet similar types, which allow for many options with decorating.

Cons

 * Wood planks are flammable, meaning that a wooden building cannot be built near a lava pool or anywhere that it could possibly catch on fire.
 * If you're in an area that does not have any trees, it's very difficult to acquire wood planks.