Wood in Project Zomboid: logs, planks and firewood

Wood in Build 42 comes in a handful of items. Logs and planks matter most. The rest are useful as fuel, crafting material or carving stock. Weights and burn times below come from the Build 42.19 item data on pzfans (one source).

Sticks are not listed separately in the sources we checked. In Build 42 the small wood items are mostly branches and twigs.

Equip an axe-type tool, right-click a mature tree and choose to chop it. A felled tree drops logs and sometimes a Large Branch. Chopping is a long, loud job, and players report that it drains endurance fast, so rest on a chair or in a car seat between trees. See fitness for how endurance recovers.

The tool matters more than in Build 41, because axes now lose condition quickly on trees. Steam players who tested this in early 2025 reported these rough results, and they are anecdotes rather than game data:

A crude stone axe can be made from a tree branch, a rag and sharp flint, according to players. It works for a first tree, but it is not a long-term tool. Higher Maintenance did not seem to save primitive axes in those tests. Find a real axe at logging sites, ranger buildings or fire stations, and check tools for others.

Chopping trees trains the Axe skill. Lumberjack starts with Axe +2, Firefighter with +1, and the Brawler trait adds +1. Starting at Axe 0 gives only a 0.25 XP multiplier, while +2 gives 1.33. Level 10 needs 32,775 total XP. These figures come from pindrop.gg (one source). More on leveling is on the skills page.

Build 42 added muscle strain from swinging weapons. Each weapon skill level cuts strain by 7.5%, and Strength scales it from 150% at level 0 down to 50% at level 10 (one source). The source we found describes strain from combat swings and does not say whether tree chops add it, so treat that as unconfirmed. We also could not confirm exactly how much Axe skill speeds up chopping in 42.22.

Opinion Chop with a full endurance bar, stop when the tired moodle appears, and avoid chopping right before a fight.

With a saw in your inventory, right-click a log and saw it. Each log becomes 3 planks and gives 5 Carpentry XP. A Large Branch gives 1 plank. The saw is not used up, but sawing is noisy and can pull nearby zombies. Two sources agree on the 3-plank yield: the pzfans item page and Steam players in 2025.

Build 42 has the standard saw plus a crude saw. The crude saw is accepted for the Saw Large Branch recipe (one source). We could not confirm whether it can saw full logs or what other saw variants exist in 42.22.

Logs weigh 9.0 each, so carrying four logs costs 36 units before anything else. pzfans lists log stacks of 2, 3 and 4 at 6.0, 9.0 and 12.0 (one source), which would make stacking much lighter than loose logs. Check this in your game before relying on it. Read carry weight before a hauling trip.

Opinion Saw logs at your base, not in the woods. Planks are lighter per unit of building, but sawing in the forest is loud and wastes time far from safety. A vehicle makes log hauling far easier.

Foraging is the easy source of small wood. The Firewood & Stones search focus is available at Foraging level 0. Firewood finds are heaviest in Deep Forest zones, get a 50% boost in fall, and stay findable in December to February when most other forage disappears. That makes it a key part of winter planning.

For burning, logs last longest per item. Burn times from the same Build 42.19 data (one source): log 6 hours, plank 2 hours, scrap wood 1.4 hours, tree branch 1 hour, twigs 15 minutes. Small wood can also become charcoal: 18 pieces make 12 Charcoal in the Burn Small Wood into Charcoal recipe (one source). See fire and fuel for stoves, campfires and charcoal use.

Opinion Burn twigs and branches to start a fire, then add logs. Save planks for building, since nails and planks are the scarce part of carpentry.

Build 42 recipes below come from the pzfans carpentry pages. Log counts assume 3 planks per log and are rounded up. Full recipes are on the carpentry page.

The log wall is the classic no-nail wall. It still exists in Build 42, but we could not confirm its exact log and rope cost or skill level in 42.22, so check the Build menu. Planks also feed barricades at 1 plank and 1 nail each. For layout ideas see base building.

Felling is not the only option. Logging sites such as McCoy Logging near Muldraugh can hold stacked logs and planks. Lumber crates, carpentry crates, garages, hardware stores and warehouses can hold planks. Dismantling wooden furniture with a hammer and saw returns planks, with Scrap Wood or Unusable Wood on a failed roll. In 42.19 the default sandbox setting for dismantling XP is 0, so you keep the materials but get no Carpentry XP.

We could not confirm how tree regrowth works in 42.22. Vegetation slowly spreads through the erosion system, but whether felled trees come back, and whether you can plant saplings, needs checking in game. Opinion Treat nearby forest as a limited resource, and loot logging sites before you start clear-cutting.