Building

Tips and advice on creating your own custom builds, modifying a pre-existing structure or decorating.

Contents

1. Knox Buildworks
2. Building Menu
3. Gathering Resources
4. Getting started
5. Blueprints
6. Durability
7. Wall finishes
8. Flooring & road works
9. Room Definition Issues
10. Roofing
11. Plumbing

Knox Buildworks

Besides the vanilla building system, the server uses the extensive building mod by Ely0n (support their efforts on Ko-Fi).

Building Menu

Access building options by one of three methods:

• Right-click on the ground and select Building Menu for a shortcut to Compact Mode (toggled with the top-right arrow) for the Knox Buildworks mod. Hover over the magnifying glass icon top-right to see build requirements.
• Press F7.
• Use Building on the left menu to access either vanilla Building or Knox Buildworks mod.

Customisation

Use the cog icon top right of Knox Buildworks to change the background behind icons, increase icon size, disable fading of objects missing build requirements, amongst other aspects.

Gathering Resources

• Industrial buildings can have nails, screws and other construction materials.
• Blacksmithing allows you to craft nails or sledgehammers at a certain level.
• Gardening supply stores are a good source of bricks, bags of gravel or sand.
• Some towns have shops catering to specific resources such as a paint, fabric or pottery store.
• Leather for building crafting stations can be sourced from hunting deer, breeding livestock, or looting leather factories in Rosewood and Louisville.
• Dismantling car wrecks is a good source of various metals.
• Post offices can have some appliances in the mail bags or parcels.
• Glassmaking and Pottery lets you create glass panes for windows or ceramic tiles.
• Some resources can be bought from the Survivor Shop.
• Tips for finding clay can be found in advice for the Pottery skill.

Struggling for loot?

See information on how to loot cycle.

Getting started

Make sure you have sufficient light to build.

Most walls require a Wood Frame built first.

Some objects built using mods cannot be disassembled with a hammer, so have a sledgehammer ready to remove them.

Blueprints

Knox Buildworks lets you design before spending materials and more easily collaborate with other players to construct a project. On the left side menu, open the Building tray and select the blueprints icon.

Check the documentation for a full guide on how to plan your project.

You can also plan your project in a web browser which lets you create a downloadable blueprint file to import into your game. Check here for a guide on using the Buildworks Studio website.

Durability

The durability of a wall, fence or railing depends on the material used and can be increased based on your skill level. For example a wooden wall built at level 0 Carpentry will have less defence than when built at Carpentry level 10.

100%

Wall finishes

1. Mix a Bucket of Water with a Bag of Plastering Powder.
2. Obtain a tool such as a Plastering Trowel.
3. Right-click on the Wood Frame wall and Plaster.

To apply paint:

• Tools Required: Paintbrush, Bucket of Paint

1. Right-click on the plastered wall and apply your choice of colour.

To add wallpaper:

• Tools Required: Paintbrush, Roll of Wallpaper, Bucket of Paste

1. Mix a Bucker of Water with a Bag of Wallpaper Paste Powder
2. Right-click on a wall with a Paintbrush in your inventory to apply paste
3. With a roll of wallpaper and scissors in inventory, right-click the wall to apply wallpaper.

Flooring & road works

Build 42 added the ability to make cement from grass and clay. This can also be used as an alternative to finding Bag of Concrete Powder.

1. Collect clay from deposits near water (lighter coloured tiles on dirt), using a sack and shovel. Or by Foraging with Stone as the Search Focus.
2. Collect grass in large quantities using a Scythe by right-clicking on the grassy ground, selecting Gardening and Scythe Grass.
3. Right-click on a Bucket of Water to Mix Cement.

Room Definition Issues

Firstly, a room must have the following:

• Enclosed walls
• Flooring
• A roof

However even with all of this in place, Project Zomboid can still consider this not 'indoors'. You can tell if a room is outdoors by checking the temperature on a digital watch, or by the ambient sounds you can hear.

Common causes can include:

• Stairs: Enclose staircases connecting floors with walls and a door.
• Pillars: Check corners and wall edges for pillars and remove them, as they can create leaks. Equip a sledgehammer, right click on the ground, select Destroy, then hover over areas to highlight hidden pillars.
• Garage Doors: Multi-tile doors can improperly register as having gaps, rebuilding the door can help.
• House Extensions: Pre-existing buildings and player-made buildings are considered separate entities. If you have a wall connecting to a pre-existing building, try to destroy and rebuild it.

If none of these solve your problem, create a support ticket with In-Game Help as the category so a staff member can track down the issue.

Roofing

• To build on an upper level, your character needs to be standing on the same layer. Therefore stairs may need to be built.
• Flooring works as a roof.
• Due to the perspective of the game, sloped roof tiles are an illusion purely for aesthetics.

Plumbing

3x3 example by PZWiki.

You can connect utilities that require water such as sinks, baths and washing machines to various rain collecting containers such as barrels or amphora. You can also build a well or use water dispensers. Plumbed devices will produce clean drinkable water.

The water source must be located one floor above within a 3x3 tile radius. If it is not raining, or you're not using a well, you may need to add a bit of initial water to the barrel for it to be recognised.

With a Pipe Wrench equipped, right-click the device (e.g. sink) and select to plumb it.