You've come across an iron door in Minecraft.
Curious about what secrets lie beyond the door, you start looking for a way to pry it open. But no matter how hard you look, you can't find the mechanism needed to open the door. It remains closed and you're quest to discover what lies behind it fails.
It's a problem for many players, with the Minecraft YouTuber Dream sharing the sentiments of many in a video where he talks about his undying hatred for the humble iron door. But PINKYS argues that these doors aren't as "unnecessary" as Dream claims them to be. So let’s delve into how to make them, how to open them, and why an iron door may be a better choice than a wooden door in the game.
What Are Iron Doors in Minecraft?
This seems like the simplest question in the world to answer - an iron door is a door made using iron.
But Minecraft's iron doors are unlike wooden doors in the game, as well as being unlike any iron doors you'll find in real life. We'll dig into the laborious process you go through to make them in a moment and first focus on why these doors are so hated in the Minecraft community.
It all comes down to opening and closing the doors. In Minecraft, an iron door can't be opened from the other side, meaning you can't just push or pull the door to open it. Instead, iron doors require the use of complicated mechanisms, such as levers or pressure plates, which the player has to activate separately from the door itself. In many cases, iron doors will also close automatically, making them great for prison rooms. But they’re not the best choice if you're looking to use an iron door as one of the details for the buildings you craft.
How to Craft Iron Doors in Minecraft
So, iron doors clearly have some issues that cause players to hate them. But at the same time, they're useful for guarding against mobs and monsters, in addition to preventing villagers from traipsing into your building. Additionally, if you're building something to serve as a prison, iron doors can be a great way to feed into the roleplay aspect of the game. Indeed, they’re far more than a supposedly "broken" aspect of the game (sorry Dream).
So, you may want to make one of these doors yourself. For that, you're going to need some iron ingots, which means you need to pull out your crafting table and get smelting.
Creating Iron Ingots
Take a journey into the underground of Minecraft's overworld, and you're going to come across some Iron Ore Blocks, which are basically raw iron materials. Mine them, then search around for a Blast Furnace or regular Furnace, which you'll usually find at an armorer's job site in the nearest village.
Activate the Furnace and smelt your ore to receive between three and five iron ingots. The number you get is random, but you'll only need two trips to the Furnace (and two Iron Ore Blocks) to create the six iron ingots you need for your door.
Crafting Your Iron Door
With your six iron ingots in your inventory, it's time to open your crafting table so you can build your iron door:
- Navigate to your crafting table (hopefully, you have one in your building) and right-click it.
- Drag and drop six of your iron ingots so you fill the first and second columns.
- You should see an iron door pop up in the crafting results box. Drag it into your inventory and you have your door.
How to Open Iron Doors in Minecraft
It's not difficult to craft iron doors in Minecraft, but it's tough as nails to get them to open and close. You have four options if you want to make sure your iron doors open when you need them to:
- Create some Redstone circuits
- Install pressure plates
- Use a switch or button
- Create a lever
Build a Redstone Circuit
Redstone power gives you plenty of options for opening your iron doors, making it more versatile than the other methods. You can build almost any circuit you like, though it helps to have something standardized and ready to go.
We like to build double doors, so use the following materials and circuits to get the double-door look:
- 10 pieces of Redstone dust
- Two Redstone torches
- Four pressure plates
- A pair of iron doors (meaning you'll need 12 iron ingots)
Next, just follow these steps to create your circuit:
- Dig a hole that's five blocks long and four blocks wide, giving you enough space to install your iron doors.
- Add a regular block to each side of where you'll fit the door, ensuring that each block is one block underneath the ground.
- Place your Redstone torches inside each of these two blocks.
- Place Redstone dust in a U-shape so that it attaches to both sides of your underground regular blocks.
- Fit two of your pressure plates on top of the Redstone circuit, with the other two fitted to blocks in front of your iron doors.
- Step on the pressure plates and voila - the doors simultaneously open.
Use a Pressure Plate
If you're looking for a simpler method to open doors, pressure plates have the answer:
- Use your crafting table to build any type of pressure plate you like. You can make plates using wood and stone, ensuring that the plates create a Redstone pulse that your iron door detects.
- Pop your pressure plate onto the block in front of your iron door.
With the plate in place, you can step on it to open doors. The only problems are that other Minecraft denizens, from villagers to hostile creatures, can also use the plate, and your door won't stay open if you step off the plate.
Create a Button
Buttons offer a quick and easy way to open Minecraft's iron doors immediately from either side:
- Use your crafting table to create a button using either a wooden plank or a pair of stone blocks.
- Place your button on any block adjacent to the door and press it to open the door.
- Make sure you fit another button on the other side of the door so you can get in and out from either direction.
Use a Lever
Levers offer a quick and easy way to open an iron door in Minecraft, though their simplicity makes them less functional than the other methods:
- Craft a lever using a stick and a piece of cobblestone.
- Place your lever on any block that sits next to the iron door.
- Pull the lever, and you have open iron doors. Pull it again, and the doors close.
Wooden Doors vs. Iron Doors in Minecraft
It's fair to say that building and opening an iron door in Minecraft is more complicated than it needs to be. But let’s see how iron doors stack up against the game's wooden doors.
Ease of Construction
The building part is simple for both types of doors - just gather the appropriate materials and craft. Granted, iron doors have a smelting component that forces you to seek out a forge, but you're not going to struggle here with either wood or iron.
The big difference is that wooden doors offer more variety than iron doors.
An iron door can only be made using one material - iron ingots. If you go down the wooden route, you get a choice between an oak door, birch door, spruce door, acacia door, or dark oak (the rarest of the wooden doors).
Ability to Open the Door
Both iron doors and wooden doors can be opened using Redstone circuits, buttons, levers, or pressure plates.
But wooden doors have a big advantage over iron doors in this department - you can open them by hand.
If you're looking for a simple push-and-pull operation, wood is the way to go. Iron doors take more effort to open, though that can be a good thing if you're using the door to guard valuables or to keep undesirables from escaping into the overworld.
How Easily They Break
What you sacrifice in convenience with an iron door in Minecraft is compensated by the extra security the doors offer. Beyond being harder to open, iron doors can only be broken if the door's top half is already broken. Granted, you can use almost any item to break the door in this state, but it's an extra bit of strength that you don't get with wooden doors.
If you're looking to break through wood, you can use most sharp items in your inventory, with axes providing the quickest route.
Create Your Iron Door in Minecraft
Dream may despise Minecraft's iron doors, but to other players, they have their uses. Being tough to open means they're great for guarding against mobs and keeping unwanted villagers from wandering into your buildings. Just know that you're going to have to deal with inconvenient opening methods when you choose iron doors instead of wooden doors.
Thankfully, Minecraft's complex door installation has no bearing on the ease of purchasing iron doors in the real world. You don't need pressure plates or complicated Redstone circuits with a PINKYS door, so get in touch if you're ready to install a gorgeous iron door onto your IRL home.