Fallout 76 Guide: The Best Places To Farm Aluminum

If you’ve played Fallout 76 for any length of time, you’ll know that aluminum is an incredibly precious resource. Used for weapon repairs, building certain items for your C.A.M.P, and even some weapon and armour mods, you’ll soon find yourself running out of the stuff on a pretty frequent basis. You also never find it in large quantities naturally, making it fairly difficult to find when you need it. In this guide, I aim to provide the information for you to go out into Appalachia and gather loads of aluminum in the shortest time possible.

We’ll start off by going through the locations you can visit that contain large quantities of the silver stuff. I’ll be using Vault 76 as a base point that you can use to find these locations if you haven’t already.

Tygart Water Treatment Plant

Tygart Water Treatment Plant is south east of Vault 76 and south of Helvetia

The first location we’ll be visiting in this guide is Tygart Water Treatment Planet, although the source of aluminum is not in the plant itself. Once you arrive at the plant, you’ll want to open up your map and mark the road directly east. Make your way there and you’ll find a flatbed truck with lots of skiing equipment on the back. Ignore the skis themselves, and gather up all of the ski poles that you can find.

Ski poles are worth two aluminum a piece, making them quite a lucrative item. You should be able to find around 8 – 10 ski poles on the back of this one truck, netting you a nice total of 16 – 20 aluminum. But do remember that Fallout 76 is an online game and all the players in the game are required to share. If the ski poles aren’t there, then most likely somebody has come along and grabbed them already. If that happens, don’t despair! Simply move onto the next location on this list and come back when the poles have respawned.

Pleasant Valley Ski Resort 

Pleasant Valley Ski Resort is south east of Vault 76 and right next to The Top Of The World

Next up in your travels is Pleasant Valley Ski Resort. You can find it smack-bang in the middle of the map, right next to the massive tower known as The Top Of The World. Expect resistance in this area, as level 8 – 15 Scorched prowl around, presumably guarding those precious ski poles. Make sure to comb the area thoroughly, as these racks can be difficult to spot as they tend to blend into the environment.

The amount of poles that spawn is unfortunately completely random, but you can expect to find around 15 – 20 poles. For all you budding mathematicians out there, that means you’ll be walking away with a massive 30 – 40 aluminum, which is a huge amount from a single location. Just like before, these poles could well have been snagged by another wastelander, so don’t be too disheartened if they aren’t there and try again later.

Eastern Regional Penitentiary

Eastern Region Penitentiary is a short walk north east from Vault 76 and is just north of Morgantown

Prisons aren’t a particularly nice place to be in the real world, nevermind in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Eastern Regional Penitentiary may be a great place for aluminum, but it’s also a Ghoul-infested maze. The cafeteria inside is home to a handful of TV dinner trays, each one worth 2 aluminum, but getting there is a pain. Follow these instructions I’m about to give you, and hopefully you’ll get there in one piece.

Make sure you enter from the front. As soon as you’re inside, you’ll want to go through the double doors in front of you and then take a hard-right. You should be staring at the long corridor that is Cell Block A. Next, you’ll want to keep heading straight forward, over the debris, and into the showers. Once in the showers, turn hard-left and you’ll see a doorway leading to Cell Block B. Go through the doorway and around the blockage via the nearby cells. After you’ve navigated the blockage, carry on down the Cell Block B corridor and you’ll end up inside the cafeteria.

You’ll more than likely be hounded by dozens of ghouls on your way there, so if you get turned around, go back to the entrance and follow the steps again. Inside the cafeteria you’ll find a lot of trays, but it’s the TV dinner trays you’ll be wanting, most of them scattered on the floor. Cafeteria trays only give you a small amount of plastic so, unless you’re looking for it, don’t bother with them. After searching, I found a total of 8 dinner trays clocking in at 16 aluminum, but you could find one or two that I may have missed.

Tyler County Dirt Track

Tyler County Dirt Track is directly north west of Fallout 76 and is next to an unmarked fairground.

If you’ve visited all of these locations and are still in the need of a reliable source of aluminum, then Tyler Country Dirt Track is your next stop. Whilst there’s no traditional sources of aluminum here, there is something a lot more valuable. This location just happens to have a workshop that will allow you to build items in the surrounding area. Claim it, and you’ll have access to the nearby aluminum ore vein that will provide a constant flow of aluminum.

First, you’ll have to build an aluminum extractor. This can be found under the “Resources” tab in your workshop. All you have to do is build said extractor on top of the aluminum vein and just wait for it to do its thing. Granted, this a slow method of collecting aluminum, and you’ll have to defend your workshop from enemies or other players. I would only recommend doing this if all of your other avenues have been exhausted. 

Resource Tagging

There’s also one sure-fire way of finding aluminum when you’re travelling Appalachia, and it won’t have you looking at guides. Resource Tagging is something that is extremely useful that the game doesn’t even tell you exists. Whenever you’re lacking a material to craft something, you’ll be given the option to tag that specific resource. This will then attach a little magnifying glass to items that give you that specific material when scrapped.

This is a great way to find any materials you may be running out of. However, you’re here for aluminum. Below is a list of items to watch out for that contain decent amounts of aluminum, most of which will be easy to find with your new Resource Tagging knowledge:

This isn’t every single item that contains aluminum, and there’s plenty of others out there. However, these are the items you’ll most likely come across in large quantities, especially in bakeries and hospitals.

So that was a short(ish) guide to getting the maximum amount of aluminum in the smallest amount of time possible. A quick whip around all of the locations here will get you a maximum of 76 aluminum, and if you need more than that, then your weapons must be in a state.

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Fallout 76 is available on PC, PS4 and Xbox One.