House

A basic House.
9 (exterior width) x 7 (exterior height)

See also Guide:Bases for Building an NPC Town (or Base)

See also Multi-Crafting Areas for examples on how to build a crafting room for your house.

A House (or Home) is a structure built by the player that Town NPCs require in order to spawn, with one House required per NPC. A structure must meet several requirements in order to function as a House (see details below). You can check if a structure meets the requirements by using the Housing Menu's top button, labeled with a question mark ("?"). NPCs generally retreat to their Houses at night and remain in them until dawn. They will also retreat to their houses during a Solar Eclipse.

The Guide will appear upon starting a new world, and if killed, will require a House in order to respawn. The Old Man, the Traveling Merchant, and the Skeleton Merchant do not require Houses.

Somewhat like the Guide, the Angler, Goblin Tinkerer, Mechanic, Stylist, Wizard and Tavernkeep will each make their initial appearances regardless of available housing. Once initially found, each will require a House in order to respawn subsequently.

Certain naturally-generated structures can serve as Houses and may inadvertently attract NPCs if players have placed light sources within them. These can include Living Tree treasure rooms and Floating Island structures. NPCs can be moved from these to the player's structures using the Housing Menu.

Housing Menu

Housing Menu

The menu for managing the placement of NPCs, accessed through clicking the small house icon above the armor slots.

The Housing menu allows you to check whether the houses you have built are suitable for use or not, as well as to manually appoint a house for a specific NPC. To access this menu click on the house icon in your inventory. Template:Mobile iconThere is no housing menu on the Mobile version, making it impossible to choose a house for your NPC, since any NPC can choose any house.

To check whether a house is suitable for use, click on the "?" housing query mark and then click anywhere inside the house; you will receive a message indicating whether the house is suitable or not. If it is not suitable, you can check the house requirements further down this page to see what the house may be lacking.

Once a house is determined to be suitable you may assign an NPC to it by placing the corresponding NPC Flag in it. Note that only the flags of NPCs whose spawn conditions you have already met will appear. For example, when you first enter a new world only the Guide's NPC Flag is shown. NPC Flags for other NPCs will only be shown when you meet each of their spawn conditions.

When you first meet the spawn conditions for an NPC a random house will be assigned to them from your available empty suitable houses.

Framework

A house must be fully enclosed:

• The side walls (vertical blocks) can be made of blocks, Doors, Platforms or Tall Gates.
• The floor and ceiling (horizontal blocks) can be made of blocks, Trap Doors or Platforms. The whole floor cannot be made of platforms.
• The NPC needs at least two solid (non-platform) blocks to stand on at night. These blocks may not be directly adjacent to either of the 2 side walls of the house.

Entrance

A house must have at least one entrance, which can be a Door or Tall Gate in a side wall, a Trap Door in the ceiling or floor, a Platform in the ceiling, floor, or side walls.

Size

A miniature 3x10 House.

Including the frame (floor, side walls, and ceiling), a House must have at least 60 total tiles, but less than 750.

Therefore, a House's outer frame must meet one of the following minimum dimensional requirements:

Excluding ceiling, floor and walls	Including ceiling, floor and walls
3 tiles wide x 10 tiles high	5 tiles wide x 12 tiles high
4 tiles wide x 8 tiles high	6 tiles wide x 10 tiles high
5 tiles wide x 7 tiles high	7 tiles wide x 9 tiles high
6 tiles wide x 6 tiles high	8 tiles wide x 8 tiles high
7 tiles wide x 5 tiles high	9 tiles wide x 7 tiles high
8 tiles wide x 4 tiles high	10 tiles wide x 6 tiles high
10 tiles wide x 3 tiles high	12 tiles wide x 5 tiles high
13 tiles wide x 2 tiles high Template:Console iconTemplate:Mobile icon	15 tiles wide x 4 tiles high

Background Walls

A House with "windows" before the 1.1 Update, which added Glass Walls.

A house must have a background wall in order to be suitable. Any walls crafted or mined by the player are valid.

• Walls not placed by a player (such as naturally-occurring dirt walls) do not count, with the exception of those generated in Floating Islands, the Planked Walls found in Underground Cabins, the Living Wood Walls in Living Tree rooms, or the Sandstone Brick Walls found in Pyramid structures. Dirt walls placed by the player do work.
• Background walls may contain holes if the holes are no taller or wider than four tiles. (e.g. 4 background tiles across or tall, so the maximum size allowed is 4x4, 16 tiles in total.). Walls may have multiple holes as long as they are separated by at least a single tile of background walls.
  • Having background holes may sometimes allow enemies to spawn within the House. To create windows more safely, place sections of Glass Wall instead.

Furniture

A House must have at least one valid Light Source, Flat Surface item, and Comfort item placed within it. The items listed below will fulfill these requirements.

• Not every item that provides light will fulfill a House's light source requirement. You must use one of the items listed below.
• Any type of each item listed below will fulfill the requirement. For example, any color Torch will work, as will any theme of Chairs.

Light Source Template:Item link2 Torch Template:Item link2 Lantern Template:Item link2 Tiki Torch Template:Item link2 Chandelier Template:Item link2 Candle Template:Item link2 Fireplace Template:Item link2 Skull Lantern Template:Item link2 Chinese Lantern Template:Item link2 Candelabra Template:Item link2 Jack 'O Lantern Template:Item link2 Lamp Template:Item link2 Christmas lights Template:Item link2 Heart Lantern Template:Item link2 Star in a Bottle

Flat Surface Items Template:Item link2 Table Template:Item link2 Dresser Template:Item link2 Work Bench Template:Item link2 Bathtub Template:Item link2 Bookcase Template:Item link2 Piano Template:Item link2 Alchemy Table Template:Pc icon Template:Item link2 Bewitching Table Template:Pc icon Template:Item link2 War Table Template:Pc icon

Comfort Items Template:Item link2 Chair Template:Item link2 Throne Template:Item link2 Bench Template:Item link2 Bed Template:Item link2 Toilet Template:Item link2 Sofa

Location

If a House is located near Corruption or Crimson, it may become uninhabitable. If these spread near an occupied House, the NPC living there may move out and wander the area until a new House becomes available.

A House is considered corrupted based on its "Corruption/Crimson rating," which calculates all tiles in a 45-block "radius" around the house; a house's Corruption/Crimson rating must be 250 or less. This is about half the blocks in the radius.

• Each tile of Ebonstone/Crimstone, Ebonsand/Crimsand, and Corrupted/Crimson vines/plants increases a House's Corruption/Crimson rating by 1.
• Each tile of Hallowed grass, Pearlsand, and Hallowed vines/plants reduces the rating by 1.
• Each Sunflower reduces a House's Corruption Rating by 5.

Note that Pearlstone does not reduce the corruption rating.

A simple valid house

File:SimpliestHousing.PNG

A simple valid house.

Materials required:

• 25 Dirt Block for floor, wall and ceiling.
• 32 Dirt Wall (8 Dirt Block) for background wall.
• Wooden Door (6 Wood). Can be replaced with one Wood Platform.
• Wooden Chair (4 Wood).
• Wooden Table (8 Wood) or Work Bench (10 Wood).
• Torch (1 Wood, 1 Gel, results 3).

Summary raw materials:

• 33 Dirt Block
• 19 Wood (if using door) or 14 Wood (if using a single wood platform)
• 1 Gel

This works, but if you don't want house to be occupied by vines, replace dirt with wood, stone, or mud. While this is a simple option, it's susceptible to Corruption or Crimson.

Achievements

No Hobo • “Build a house suitable enough for your first town NPC, such as the guide, to move into.”

Successfully get an NPC to move into your first House. Template:Pc icon

Real Estate Agent • “Have all possible town NPCs living in your world.”

All town NPCs are housed in your world. Template:Pc icon

Home Sweet Home • “The Guide has moved into your house”

Have the Guide move into a house. Template:Console iconTemplate:Mobile icon

File:Achievement All In The Family.png

All In The Family • “Every NPC has moved into your house”

All town NPCs are housed in your world. Template:Console iconTemplate:Mobile icon

Notes

• Houses may be attached together and share common walls, floors, ceilings, and doors.
• If a House with an assigned NPC is destroyed or any of its requirements are invalidated, the NPC will wander the area until a valid House becomes available again. If killed, the NPC will respawn once a valid house is restored.
• An NPC will not spawn within its House if that House is on the visible screen at the time, and may walk around the area outside instead. Quitting and restarting in single-player mode will place the NPC in its house. At night, NPCs will be automatically placed inside their Houses if the player travels several screens away, or if the player uses a Magic Mirror or Teleporter.
• The side, top, and bottom of the world will not count as walls.
• If a stone wall has been converted into Pearlstone Wall, the House will become invalid.
• If building a house at a world's original spawn point, it is best to not place any foreground objects or blocks where characters appear. This will remove the object(s) and place them in the new player's inventory.

Tips

An infinite house. It no longer works as of version 1.3.1, but it should still work for  Console version. Does not work for  Mobile version anymore.

• Actuators can be used with Brown, Grey, and Lihzahrd Pressure Plates to allow players entry but prevent enemies from entering or NPCs from leaving. Trap Doors can also be used, as neither enemies nor NPCs can open them.  PC version After the 1.3.1 update, it is very useful and convenient to use a Player Sensor instead of pressure plates, as you will not only have much more ground space to use but you can also activate the Actuators or Trap Door from simply being in the proximity of them.
• Template:Console icon Players can build an infinite house. This way, you can hold an unlimited amount of NPCs, and you can save time.
• In Mobile, players can force an NPC into a particular house by destroying all the others.
• Hardmode natural walls, such as Pearlstone and Ebonstone walls, do not count as valid walls.
• The "Infinite House" exploit will always work on old-gen consoles (Xbox 360 & PS3), due to the fact that these consoles will not receive further updates to Terraria.

History

• 1.3.5: NPCs who are manually assigned to a room will have their successor attempt to move in when the original is killed.

• 1.3.1: Removed the "Infinite House" glitch.

• 1.3.0.5: Living Leaf Walls can now be used as a background for houses.

• 1.3.0.1: Blue Slab Walls from the Dungeon are now detected as valid for Houses.

• 1.2.4.1: Opening doors will once again cause a room to be unsuitable, but only if two doors are opened into the same room. (Depends on size of room)

• 1.2: Fixed a bug that would cause a suitable house to be unsuitable.

• 1.1: There is now a Housing Menu (a built-in interface) for checking if a house is valid for being moved into, and for assigning NPCs to specific houses.

• 1.0.6: Requirements modified; may now use a bed, toilet, throne or bench instead of a chair, and may use a dresser, bathtub or bookcase instead of a table or workbench.

Template:Translation project