Water is in fact not a source of hydration in Minecraft, but rather a valuable tool that can be used as decoration or as a way to interact with other materials. It's essential when it comes to creating crop farms that can be used to feed livestock but is equally important in cobblestone and obsidian generators.
One ingenious way to use water is to transport mobs and players. Thanks to how it interacts with fall damage and with a few select blocks in the game, you can build convenient water elevators to quickly get from one place to another. It's also how many mob farms function by transporting mobs from a spawning chamber into the actual farm itself. Here's how the humble water elevator works, and how to make one.
Required Items For A Water Elevator In Minecraft
It's very cheap to make a water elevator, and all of the items required can be acquired after you have accessed the Nether for the very first time. This is because Soul Sand is an essential part of the water elevator. You'll need:
- 1 block of Soul Sand
- Loads of kelp
- A slab of any kind
- A bucket of water
- 2 signs of any type
- Building blocks of your choice (here, glass is used as an example)
Build Your Elevator Shaft
First, build the elevator shaft. If you're building underground, you simply need to carve out a long single-block tunnel up to the level that you want your elevator to take you to.
This first shaft will be an elevator that takes you upwards.
Build An Entrance
At the bottom of the elevator, make sure to build an entrance that protrudes from the actual shaft itself.
This will be important later to ensure the water doesn't flow out of the elevator and into your base.
Complete the shaft all the way until the top, and make sure all sides of the shaft are sealed.
Water should only flow within the center tunnel that goes down to the entrance, and the entrance itself should be a two-block high doorway.
Place Down Water
Before you place down any water, it's time to use an age-old trick. Put down two wooden signs on the side of the entrance as seen above.
Signs count as full blocks and will prevent the water from flowing through the doorway and going everywhere
Note: Make sure not to put them inside the shaft itself!
Go to the top of the elevator, where you'll exit from, and place down your water source at the very top of the shaft, against the last block.
The water will then flow downwards.
Return to the bottom of the shaft to check you did everything correctly. Your elevator will be ready for the next step when you see the water flowing inside like this, blocked off by the two wooden signs on the doorway.
Place The Kelp
In order for the water elevator to work, every single block inside the elevator must be a water source block. Rather than having an inventory full of water buckets and diving inside to place them down randomly, which is tedious, you can actually use kelp.
Step inside the water elevator and place down kelp all the way from the bottom to the top.
Each placed down piece of kelp will turn each block of water from flowing into a source block. Once this is done, return to the bottom of the elevator and break the bottom kelp, since you won't need it anymore. This should leave just a shaft full of water source blocks.
Place The Soul Sand
Then, break the bottom block of the elevator and replace it with a Soul Sand block.
If you placed your kelp correctly, your water elevator upwards should be complete and functional now. To test it out, step inside the elevator, and the bubbles should push you quickly all the way to the top.
If you get stuck somewhere in the middle, remove the Soul Sand and place down the kelp again.
Make A Way Down
Now that your upwards elevator is done, you might want to make a way down. The process for this is much easier, and the design is pretty much identical with the exception of water and wooden signs.
You can simply create a shaft right next to your existing one as seen above.
Create the exit for the downward elevator right next to your upwards-headed one.
It can be exactly the same, though you won't be needing wooden signs.
Finish off the shaft all the way to the top. You'll know it's correct if the elevators look like two rudimentary flower shapes sharing a petal in the middle.
Make sure there are no gaps for mobs to spawn in.
At the bottom of your downward elevator, destroy both the bottom block in the doorway, and the bottom block in the elevator itself. In the doorway, put down a slab of your choice, and in the elevator, place your bucket of water.
Now, if you drop down from the top, you'll fall into the water block and never take any fall damage. The slab allows you to walk forward without jumping to step out of the elevator easily.
You can also use a Magma block at the bottom and fill the shaft with water as well. The Magma cube works in reverse compared to the Soul Sand. However, this method is slower to complete.