Start in Apartment 3004 and secure your first day
In 30 Floors Up, your first objective is not to clear the building. It is to turn Apartment 3004 on Floor 30 into a dependable starting base before the building's water and power fail on Day 3. Search the apartment, bring food and water to the Pantry or storage area, collect a usable weapon and repair materials, then make sure you can sleep behind a defensible door. The dedicated base defense guide covers the layered locks, braces, and repairs once this first setup is complete.
That preparation gives you a safe place to manage Hunger and Thirst supplies and recover Fatigue and Stamina while you learn the building. Treat every trip outside as an expedition with a purpose: bring back water, medicine, tools, or a route-opening item. If you spend the first day sprinting through random rooms, you can return with less stamina, more noise, and no stockpile when the taps stop.
Your first-session target is therefore simple:
- Empty Apartment 3004 of useful food, water, medical supplies, tools, and a kitchen weapon.
- Put food into the Pantry rather than leaving it on a table or in a cupboard.
- Fill the bathtub, buckets, and bottles while the taps still work.
- Brace or repair the entrance with boards, nails, screws, and a hammer when available.
- Finish the day with a quiet return route and enough stamina to retreat.
You do not need to solve the rooftop route immediately. You need a base that can support the exploration required to find it.
How Bellwether Heights changes after Day 3
The building is a vertical, session-based survival route. A run starts on Floor 30 in Apartment 3004, then branches through apartments, stairwells, the elevator shaft, vents, service areas, and lower floors as you search for supplies and progression items. The Ground Floor, B1 Parking Garage, and Rooftop are part of the same building route, not separate starter maps.
Before Day 3, working taps let you convert containers into a water reserve, and the elevator is a convenient way to move. On Day 3, the water supply is permanently cut off and the power fails. The elevator then stops being a reliable traversal option, so later movement depends on stairs, walking routes, and alternatives such as the Floor 28 elevator-shaft hatch. This cutoff changes the value of every early action: a filled tub is future survival time, while a long noisy detour can cost the stamina you need after the blackout.
Player calculator
Water fill time calculator
Estimate how long a container takes to fill from each tap or from steady rain.
Estimated result
- Estimated fill time
- 10 sec
- Published flow rate
- 2 L/s
This is collection time only; rain water still needs treatment before drinking.
Assumptions and sources
Assumptions
- Tap and rain flow remain constant for the full fill.
- Container capacity, spills, interruptions, treatment, and travel time are not included.
- Rain collection requires an open container on the balcony or at a valid rooftop collection point.
Sources
- https://30-floors-up.fandom.com/wiki/Water_%26_Containers · reviewed 2026-11-04
- https://30-floors-up.fandom.com/wiki/Rain_Collection_%26_Treatment · reviewed 2026-11-04
The run has a practical progression rather than a fixed room-by-room script. First stabilize Floor 30, then make short scouting trips, unlock or identify routes, and move supplies toward the next safe position. Floor 11's Medical Clinic and Floor 19's Kitchen are useful locations to recognize, while upper corridors, the Ground Floor, B1, and the Rooftop become increasingly important as you work toward extraction. The exact key order is not fully established by the available in-game guidance, so do not assume that a mention of a Roof Key proves it is identical to the Triangular Key.
The terminal decision is whether you can safely continue toward the roof or should return to stock, sleep, and try again. Reaching the Rooftop and boarding the extraction helicopter confirms survival. Dying inside the building ends that run.
The systems that keep a run alive
These are the systems to manage before you worry about fighting every infected you see.
| System or item | What it changes | First-use rule |
|---|---|---|
| Hunger | Running low limits how long your supplies support exploration. | Collect food in Apartment 3004 and store it in the Pantry. |
| Thirst | The tighter survival resource; water supply is cut off on Day 3. | Prioritize filled containers before exploring far from home. |
| Fatigue and sleep | Fatigue reduces your ability to keep operating over time. | Return to a safe bed before a long expedition, not after you are trapped outside. |
| Stamina | Controls sustained running, fighting, and evasive movement. | Keep a reserve for retreat; do not sprint through every corridor. |
| Water containers | Carry or store water after the taps stop. | Fill the bathtub, buckets, and bottles before Day 3; use clean-water options when available. |
| Doors and furniture | Delay infected and buy time at a base or choke point. | Lock doors and push furniture against them, then repair damage with the right materials. |
| Tools and weapons | Tools open or repair parts of the route; melee weapons handle close threats. | Keep a route-relevant tool and one weapon, such as a frying pan, without filling the whole toolbar. |
| Noise | Running, fighting, opening doors, and moving objects can make an area more dangerous. | Walk and plan when possible; make noise only for a clear gain or escape. |
Food and water are not interchangeable. The survival guidance records daily decay for both meters, with water falling faster, so a food-heavy inventory does not solve a water shortage. Full rations help maintain the meters, but they do not remove the underlying need to stockpile and collect more supplies. If you find medical supplies, keep them for injuries rather than treating them as general loot; a clinic trip can be valuable, but only when the route and return plan are ready.
Doors are a time-buying system, not a permanent wall. Lock them, brace them with couches or chairs, and repair damage with boards, screws, and a hammer when possible. A bathroom vent on Floor 30 can provide an alternate way out, but crouching through it prevents you from carrying large items such as buckets or boards. That makes it an escape route, not a replacement for moving your entire stockpile.
Your first apartment-to-rooftop preparation run
Use this sequence for your first serious attempt. Each checkpoint tells you when the current stage is complete and what should happen next.
- Search Apartment 3004 before opening a long route. Pick up food, water, medical supplies, tools, and any weapon you can use at close range. The checkpoint is an inventory that can support a short trip; once you have it, sort food into the Pantry and keep only route-relevant items on your person.
- Turn the apartment into a water reserve. While the taps still work, fill the bathtub first, then buckets and bottles. The tub is the fastest listed tap, so it is the best place to start when you are carrying water between containers. Put filled containers where you can find them again. When the checkpoint is a visible reserve rather than an empty bathroom, move to defense instead of wandering.
Fill water reserves and manage survival meters
This moment shows the bathtub fill, water storage, Pantry supplies, and survival meters described in the first-day preparation route.
- Secure the entrance and choose a sleep position. Lock the door, push furniture against it, and use boards, nails, screws, and a hammer to repair or reinforce damage. Make sure the room where you intend to sleep is behind that defense. The feedback you want is a protected reset point; once it is ready, sleep to restore stamina and reduce the risk of beginning an expedition exhausted.
Reinforce the apartment entrance
This moment illustrates the screws and board needed to repair the damaged door before using the apartment as a safe reset point.
- Make one quiet neighboring-room scout. Carry one weapon and the tool needed for the next object you actually intend to open. Walk when possible, avoid unnecessary fights, and note the path back to Apartment 3004. If Daniel is in the neighboring apartment, decide whether you can safely deal with his door and situation before opening it; do not create a second defense problem while your own entrance is unsecured. The scavenging route helps decide what to search and when to turn back.
- Return with a useful haul, not a full fight. Bring back food, water containers, boards, screws, nails, medical supplies, or a route-opening tool such as Bolt Cutters. If several infected gather, close or brace a door and retreat instead of spending all Stamina on melee attacks. The checkpoint is a stocked base and a known escape route; deposit the haul before choosing the next floor.
- Sleep and repeat short expeditions before the cutoff. Rest on a proper bed or other safe sleeping position, then use the next outing to fill missing containers and learn the stairwell or alternate route. Keep Fatigue and Stamina separate in your decisions: resting helps recovery, while sprinting only solves the immediate distance. Stop the expedition if the return route is no longer safer than the objective.
- Treat Day 3 as a route transition. Before the cutoff, finish filling every useful container you have found and move water into storage. After the water and power fail, verify that you can travel on foot; do not plan around a working elevator. If the normal stairs are blocked, the Floor 28 elevator hatch, stairwells, or the Floor 30 bathroom vent may provide alternatives, with the vent reserved for a person-sized escape because large items cannot pass through it.
- Advance toward the extraction route only after the base can support it. Use the building's floors and lower areas to search for the tools and keys needed to continue. Bolt Cutters can open chained routes, while the Triangular Key is associated with leaving the building; the Roof Key is also mentioned near a bench, but its relationship to the Triangular Key is not confirmed. Verify the current objective in-game rather than discarding a key because its name seems redundant.
- Commit to the Rooftop only with a retreat decision. When your water, health, stamina, and route are adequate, continue toward the Rooftop and look for the extraction helicopter. Boarding it is the completion checkpoint and leads to the hospital-roof survival confirmation. If supplies or stamina fail before that point, return to the last defensible room; a controlled retreat preserves the run, while a desperate hallway fight can end it.
Priorities, mistakes, and recovery choices
Keep these priorities in order when a run becomes messy:
- Water before distance. The Day 3 cutoff is the first hard planning boundary. Fill what you can before chasing a distant room.
- A safe return before extra loot. Every expedition needs a known door, vent, stairwell, or other retreat route.
- Stamina before combat pride. A frying pan or knife can handle an isolated target, but multiple infected are a reason to use doors and reposition.
- Tools before clutter. A hammer, screwdriver, can opener, and Bolt Cutters can matter more than another low-value object, but retain only tools that match the next route.
- Sleep before the next major push. Do not start a floor transition while Fatigue has already made your movement unreliable.
Common mistakes have practical recoveries:
- You leave food or water in Apartment 3004. Return before scouting farther, collect it, and consolidate food in the Pantry. The recovery is worth the short risk because the starting apartment is your most predictable supply point.
- You spend all Stamina sprinting away from one infected. Break line of approach with a door or furniture, stop attacking, and walk the remaining route after stamina returns. Do not immediately sprint again through the same noisy corridor.
- You fight a group in a narrow hall. Retreat to a locked or braced room, let the choke point work for you, and try another route or time of day. Melee damage is not a requirement for every encounter.
- You reach Day 3 without enough water. Stop treating taps and the elevator as part of the plan. Search for collected rainwater, stored containers, or a basement cistern route, and shorten trips until you know which reserve is available.
- Your door is damaged. Use boards, screws, and a hammer if you have them, then push furniture against the entrance. If repair materials are missing, sleep elsewhere only after identifying a defensible room and a clear escape path.
- You carry a bucket into the bathroom vent. Put large items down, use the vent only for personal movement, and recover the supplies through a normal route. The vent can save a player without being able to save the whole inventory.
- You are unsure which key opens the final route. Keep both key clues separate, check the current objective and nearby interactables, and avoid claiming that the Roof Key and Triangular Key are the same item. The confirmed goal is the rooftop helicopter, not a particular unverified key order.
First-time 30 Floors Up questions
Can you still get water after Day 3?
Yes, but you should not depend on the normal taps. After Day 3, use water collected in containers, rain collection, or a basement cistern route if you can reach and use it safely.
What should you carry through the Floor 30 bathroom vent?
Carry yourself and small route-essential items only. The vent requires crouching and does not allow large objects such as buckets or boards, so use a normal route to move bulky supplies.
Is the Roof Key the same as the Triangular Key?
That relationship is not confirmed. Treat them as separate clues until the current in-game objective or interaction establishes otherwise, and do not discard either key during rooftop preparation.
What happens when you board the extraction helicopter?
Reaching the Rooftop and boarding the extraction helicopter completes the run's survival outcome and takes you to a hospital-roof scene. Dying inside the building ends the run instead.