How to Build a Bunker in Minecraft

Last Updated: January 26, 2022

Need a place to hide out and protect your resources in Minecraft? Building an underground survival bunker will help keep you safe from the dangers of the Overworld. If you need ideas for designing the perfect underground base with everything you'll need to survive, we've got you covered. Read on to find out how to build a secure Minecraft bunker!

Steps

1
Dig downwards. This bunker is going to be near the bedrock level. Dig a two-by-one shaft so that you can avoid falling into lava and the like. Stop when you reach around y=15.
2
Hollow out a space to stay in. A 7-wide, 13-long, 4-high space works well.

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3
Place a nether portal in one of the walls. It will probably look better in one of the short walls.
4
Fill in the shaft to the surface and place a second nether portal on the surface. You will use this portal to access your bunker.
5
Go through the top portal and dig a tunnel in the nether that links the top and bottom portals. This is probably the most dangerous part of the build. Once you have built the tunnel, you may wish to fill it with security devices.
6
Go through the portals and into your bunker. If you turn off the portal in your bunker, then anybody going through the portal system will be sent back out the top portal.
7
Decorate your bunker walls to make it more homely. If you add a layer of obsidian behind the walls, it will prevent people from using TNT to enter your bunker.
8
Add survival systems to your bunker. You are potentially going to be staying in your bunker for extended periods of time, so you want several mechanisms to allow you to survive. In addition, these mechanisms do not want to be dependent on outside resources, such as bonemeal.
- A chicken farm. Fully automatic.
- A bonemeal-less crop farm.
- A bed
- A clock
- A storage system. A shulker box loader will help.
- A furnace and an enchanting table. Not strictly resource-less (they use coal and lapis), but they won't be used very often.
- An ender pearl station. Again, not strictly resource-less, but won't be used often.
- An under-floor armory.
9
Congrats! You now have an underground bunker! You can expand it with the following suggestions:
- A small tree farm, to provide wood and charcoal
- A charcoal smelter.
- A backup nether portal, as an emergency exit.
- Rooms for more people.
- If you are near one, a skeleton spawner farm. With this providing bonemeal and XP, you can make all your other farms more compact.
- Melon, pumpkin, sugar and cocoa bean farms.
- Whatever else you can imagine. At this point, it's becoming less of an underground bunker and more of an underground city!

Community Q&A

Question

Will the portal always take me to the bunker?

TomPN

Top Answerer

Yes, as long as you build the portals in the same locations in the Nether and Overworld. There are plenty of online tutorials about nether portal mechanics -- I suggest you look some of them up for further help.
Question

Do I make a staircase to go up from the bunker, or do I use a ladder?

TomPN

Top Answerer

Either, it's your choice. Remember that the part where you are climbing up and down between the portals is in the Nether, so plan accordingly.
Question

What if lava blocks me from getting to the other nether portal and I am on survival?

TomPN

Top Answerer

1) Dig a tunnel around it. 2) Use a bucket to scoop it up, and use it later. 3) Place a block in the same space as the lava and this will remove the lava block.