Building a good roof is a vital part of building in Valheim. Without a proper roof, your home will be at risk of adverse weather and raiding enemies. Building in Valheim can be confusing, and often it can be hard to know where to begin. We’ve compiled some top tips to make sure you’re building correctly.
Why is a roof important?
Poorly constructed roofs will make your house vulnerable to the weather. Most standard-build pieces are made from wood in the game and will begin to degrade when in poor weather. This will not only reduce effective durability but actually alter their appearance – you’ll notice that the wood will have a more green tinge to it, and be slightly crooked.
As long as a roof covers wood, it will be immune from the weather’s effects and will never degrade.
Gaps in the roofing will create weak points in your structure that will be degraded by weather and can also be exploited by certain flying enemies late in the game. While structure can be strengthened by adding wood iron beams, having a strong roof will save you the need to worry about weather damage.
Did you know? You can attach 21 wood iron beams in a row without them breaking.
Getting started
We advise that when building any structure in Valheim, that you start with the roof. Using the different wood beams in the game, build as follows:
- Build a frame for the floor and walls
- Build a frame for the roof
- Fill in the frame with your roof building pieces
This is important, as while your structure has no roof, it will take weather damage, resulting in often lengthy repairs for larger houses.
Tip: If it begins raining on an unfinished structure, try and run or portal far away from your building, as the rain will not damage your building when you’re not there.
It will also help you to gather as many resources as possible before you begin building. This is so that you have enough to complete the frame and the roof in one session, and the amount of materials needed for a roof can be surprising. For example, a house that is five squares by five squares will take up 25 squares of space and will require at least 150 wood to build an adequate roof.
This is because building a fully protective roof requires six times the amount of wood it took to build the floor. This is important to remember, as if you are using materials that are harder to obtain, you might want to take this ratio into account.
Tips for building a good roof
When starting your build, make sure at least one dimension of your house is an odd number of squares long. This will enable you to add a central roof cap down the centre, which will be much more symmetrical and aesthetically pleasing.
After building your frame, you can either add the roof tiles inside the frame using snap points, or above the frame by manually placing the tiles. Having the roof tiles placed above the frame will prevent any wooden frame from protruding through the roof (this is more important for a shingle roof).
To place the roof above the frame, you only need one well-placed tile manually added. Pressing shift while placing the roof tile will remove any snapping points allowing you to place the tile exactly where you desire. Carefully place one tile using this method until it is square above the frame you have built (feel free to keep trying if unhappy with its position, this first tile is important and there is no material penalty for destroying structures in Valheim).
Once this first tile is placed you can now use the snap points, ensuring you originate at the manually placed tile, to complete the rest of the roof.
