At a glance: you can stack 4 planks per side, but 2 is the last number that still lets you see out — 3 or 4 block line of sight. Metal bars preserve vision, metal sheets do not. And whichever you build, nails are always lost when you take it down.
Two planks is usually the right answer
The instinct is to max the barricade: four planks per side on every window. The wiki’s numbers say that is a mistake on windows you actually want to see through.
- Up to four wooden planks can be added to each side of a window or door, and each has to be destroyed individually by anything attacking it.
- Up to two planks per side still allows vision through.
- Three or four on either side block line of sight.
That trade is worth being deliberate about. On a window facing a courtyard you want to watch, two planks per side gives you four individually destructible layers while keeping your view. On a window facing a wall or a blind corner, four is free security.
The three materials, and what each one costs
There are three barricade materials, and the recipes are very different in what they demand from you.
| Barricade | Ingredients | Tools | Skill | XP |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Planks | Plank ×1, Nails ×1 | hammer (tag) ×1 | none | Carpentry 10 |
| Metal bar | Iron Bar / Steel Rod / Steel Bar ×3 | Welding Torch 0.3 (3 units), Welding Rods 0.2 (3 units) | Welding 3 | Welding 30 |
| Metal sheet | Steel Sheet ×1 | Welding Torch 0.1 (1 unit), Welding Rods 0.1 (1 unit) | Welding 3 | Welding 30 |
The wooden barricade is the only one with no skill gate, which is why it is the early-game answer. Both metal options require Welding 3 plus a torch and rods, but they pay 30 XP each against the plank’s 10 — metal barricading is also a legitimate way to level Welding if you have the steel.
Vision: the reason to pick bars over sheets
This is the single most consequential line on the wiki page, and it is easy to miss. In the wiki’s own words: “Metal sheet barricades block line of sight, metal bars do not.”
If the window is one you use to watch for zombies, a metal sheet turns it into a wall. Metal bars give you the durability of metal and keep the view. When you have reached Welding 3 and you are choosing between the two, the choice is not about strength — it is about whether you want to see through that window.
Nails are the resource you actually run out of
Here is the cost that catches players out. The wiki is explicit: “Metal sheets, bars, and wooden planks can be retrieved, but nails are always lost.”
Planks are recoverable, so plank barricades are almost free to redo. Nails are consumed permanently every single time. Over a long game, a heavily barricaded safehouse is a nail sink, and the limiting resource for re-barricading after a breach is nails, not wood. If you are planning a big build, the crafting guide is where the rest of the material economy fits together.
Taking them back off
Removal rules differ by material, and getting this wrong wastes a tool slot:
- Wooden barricades can be quickly removed with a claw hammer or a firefighter axe.
- Metal barricades must be removed with a propane torch.
So a metal-barricaded window is effectively a commitment unless you are carrying the torch with you.
Barricading both sides doubles the cost
Barricades can be placed on both sides of a door or a window, so a window can carry up to four planks on the inside and four more on the outside — eight individually destructible layers. That is genuinely twice the protection, but it is also twice the nails, and nails are the one input you never recover. Doubling up is worth it on the one or two openings you expect to be attacked through, not on every window in the building.
How strong is each one
The wiki quotes the game source for barricade health. Metal bar barricades are set to 3000 health and metal sheet barricades to 5000, in both cases scaled by the condition of the item used and by the building player’s barricade strength modifier. The practical read is that sheets are the tougher of the two, which is the trade you accept when you give up the view.
For wooden planks, protection comes from layers rather than a single health pool — four planks per side means four things an attacker has to break through individually.
Putting it together
- Early game, watching window: two planks per side. Keeps vision, four destructible layers, no skill required, and planks come back when you remove them.
- Early game, blind window: four planks per side. You lose nothing by blocking the view.
- Once you have Welding 3, watching window: metal bars. Tough, and the only metal option that keeps line of sight.
- Once you have Welding 3, blind window: metal sheets, at 5000 base health the toughest option.
- Always keep nails coming in. They are the one material you never get back.
If you are deciding which building to fortify in the first place, the base-building guide and the Project Zomboid beginner guide cover site choice. Bodies left after a defence are their own problem — see how to burn corpses — and how to hotwire a car covers leaving when a base stops being defensible. For the gear side, see the best weapons tier list and the items database.