What materials do you need to make a water elevator?

Minecraft is a game with so many moving parts that you will want to explore many of the different structures you can make in your world. For those looking to reach different stories of their buildings quickly, there are multiple ways you can make an elevator to travel quickly up and down.

This guide focuses on a set of elevators that use water to push you upwards and downwards. No worries, you will not drown inside as the method we are using will create air bubbles for you as you ride up and down. No one wants to continually run up and down staircases all day long, so here is how to make some easy water elevators in your Minecraft seed.

First, you will need at least one Iron Bucket you can fill with water, your choice of blocks to build with, one block of Soul Sand, one Magma Block, and two Wooden Signs of any kind. Iron Buckets can be made with three Iron Bars each. When you craft them, gather some water source blocks from an ocean or river. The Soul Sand and Magma Cube can be found in the Nether in plenty of areas, but be sure to come equipped with armor or potions as the Nether is quite dangerous. As for the building blocks, we prefer using Glass Blocks to make it look a little cooler, but as long as you have a lot of any block to make a wall, it does not matter what you use.

To start things off, start building up a column with your building blocks. You want to surround a single block with only an open space going up. In the middle of your column, dig out the floor level one block down and place your Soul Sand.

Create a two-block tall walkway onto the Soul Sand, and place two Wooden Signs on the side. These will block the water from flowing out of the elevator while allowing you to walk through them. Go to the top of your elevator and place water into the open space to have it flow all the way down to the Soul Sand. Ensure that every single space within the elevator has a water source block, or this will not work. You will know you have done it right if you see the water moving upwards with bubbles in it.

What materials do you need to make a water elevator?
Screenshot by DoubleXP

Now step inside and the water will rush you to the top, and as stated at the beginning of the guide, you will not drown because of the bubbles flowing alongside you.

Now that you can go up, it is time to make another column to go down. Do the same steps that you did before, but instead of Soul Sand at the bottom, put in the Magma Block. If you did it right, you will see bubbles flowing down towards the Magma.

Be careful though, while you stand on the Magma Block in Survival, you will take a little damage. When you go down the elevator, be sure to walk out and regain your health. Also, be sure not to get yourself trapped on the block as you cannot swim up against the current flowing down. If you would rather not have a Magma Block at the bottom, you are fine to put any other block, but doing so will remove the fast flow downwards, and you will not have the bubbles to give you air.

Minecraft is a highly addictive game. The interest stems from the fact that you can build almost everything as per your imaginations. But for this, you may have to move around a lot in the game. And if you are not using any speed hacks or mods to help you, getting up and down is time-consuming. That’s why pro players build water elevators. But how can you craft one, and what’s required to do it?

The first step is to build an elevator shaft going up or down at the location of your preference using building blocks. Make sure there is an open space in the center of those blocks. Place water blocks in the empty spaces between the building blocks when the structure reaches your desired height. The bottom-most block should be soul sand (to go up) or magma (to go downwards).

Building stuff is what everybody loves in Minecraft. But in the Survival mode, you may worry about the mobs lurking around to disrupt your gameplay. Hence, a water elevator will help you go up and down quicker than any other method if you want to avoid such mobs. That’s why I am going to tell you how to craft it. Let’s get to know about building a water elevator from scratch.

Required Materials to Build a Water Elevator in Minecraft

What materials do you need to make a water elevator?

Here is the list of items you need to build a Water Elevator in Minecraft:

1. Building Block

The primary item to build a water elevator is a building block. You can use Glass blocks as well because of their aesthetic look. Otherwise, you can use any building block to craft the walls of the elevator. 

2. Wooden Door

You have to use the Spruce Door at the entrance of the Water Elevator. You can make do without using one as well. It’s not necessary but adds a visually appealing look.

3. Kelp

Kelp turns the water blocks into a water source; hence you must use it in the bottom-most water block of the elevator before using magma or soul sand block.

4. Water Bucket

It serves as a water source to fill up the elevator with water. You use it after you have built the structure with the building blocks.

5. Signs

Place the oak signs on either side of the entrance to stop the flow of water. They will also allow you to walk through the water block without the water leaking out.

6. Magma Block

Players use the magma block to create a downward flow of water. Hence, magma blocks assist in creating a downward water elevator.

7. Soul Sand Block

Soul Sand blocks are for crafting an ‘upward’ water elevator. They create an upward flow of water when you use them as the base of the water elevator.

What materials do you need to make a water elevator?

Now that we have mentioned all the items needed to make a water elevator let’s get to know how to make a Water Elevator in Minecraft.

1. Find The Perfect Location

First of all, try to find a suitable location where you would want to build the elevator. Pro players mainly use the elevators to reach the upper floors of the buildings they create. So your elevator should be at a location where you can easily reach all the desired locations.

2. Building The Outer Structure

Once you have found a good location, use any of the building blocks you like to use to create the outer structure of the elevator. Stack the building blocks so that three blocks conjoin like three sides of a square with a vacant space in the center. Stack up as high as you want your elevator to be.

If you want your elevator to look aesthetically pleasing, you can use glass as building blocks.

3. Fixing The Door In Elevator

After you have stacked the set of 3 blocks high enough as per your requirements, go to the bottom of your elevator again. Fix the wooden door on the open side of the 3-block structure so the lowermost unit of the elevator becomes a perfect square with four sides. 

Now stack the building blocks upon the wooden door up to the height of the elevator while leaving a space in the center of the square. 

4. Fill The Elevator With Water

Go to the top of the structure that you have built for the creation of the elevator. Use the water buckets to fill the center space with water going all the way down to the base of the elevator. 

5. Use Kelp To Convert To Water Source Blocks

Once you have filled the entire center space with water blocks, use the kelp in all the water blocks to turn them into source blocks. 

6. Create An Upward Elevator

If you want to create an upward elevator, go to the base of your elevator structure. After that, break the kelp and use a soul sand block as the base of the center of the elevator. It will make you go up from the base when you walk through the elevator entrance.

7. Create A Downward Elevator

To create a downward water elevator, use a Magma block instead of the Soul Sand block. The elevator will pull you downwards when you enter it from the top.

How to Make Water Elevator in Minecraft with Soul Sand

Soul Sand blocks have a unique property. When you place a Soul Sand block at the bottom of a water source, anything present in the water will move upwards at a rapid speed. That is why you use them in upward water elevators.

How to Make a Water Elevator in Minecraft with Magma

Magma blocks work precisely in the opposite way. They pull everything down, present in the water source above them. You can use the magma blocks to make the downward elevator.

How to Make a Water Elevator in Minecraft with Kelp

You can use kelp to convert the flowing water blocks to source blocks. You can remove it once it has converted the water blocks.

How to Make a Water Elevator in Minecraft with Signs

The use of signs stops the water from flowing out of the elevator and helps you walk through the water from the entrance.

  • What materials do you need to make a water elevator?

    Hrvoje Milakovic is co-owner of Fiction Horizon and a big cinephile. Apart from that, he likes to read comics, play games and collect action figures. He has been featured on LifeWire, Yahoo and IMDb, to name a few.

What's inside a water elevator?

There is no mechanical system to this elevator, it's all just water and a giant floating platform. After the elevator reaches the top, they raise a small wall that blocks the water in the elevator from the top level of the pool.

How do you make a water magma elevator?

To do that, you must make your water elevator two blocks wide. Then place a magma block and a soul sand block at its bottom. You can jump into the magma bubbles to go down and into the soul sand bubbles to go up.