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 or Rain.

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

Similarly, the Guide, 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 suitable House before respawning.

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
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.

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. On the, NPC Flags have two different appearances: solid red and red with a golden frame. NPCs that move in by their own will have a regular red flag. If they are assigned to a house, the banner will have a golden frame. This indicates that if the NPC currently inhabiting the home were to die, the replacement for that NPC would move into that specified home. Due to this, a golden NPC flag will not disappear unless the home it is in is destroyed or the NPC is reassigned.

In the, the housing menu can be opened by pressing and navigating to the housing menu. To check whether a house is valid, press and the housing status of the house you are standing in will be printed in chat. Press to show/hide room flags.

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 with the following features:
 * 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.
 * Including the above frame (floor, side walls, and ceiling), a house must have at least 60 total tiles, but less than 750.
 * The house must include a light source, a "flat surface" item, and a "comfort item". The smallest and simplest items which qualify are respectively a torch, a workbench, and a chair.
 * The NPC needs at least one solid (non-platform) block to stand on at night, and (except ) a 2x3 area unobstructed by foreground blocks. These blocks may not be directly adjacent to either of the 2 side walls of the house. The NPC standing area may overlap with the flat or comfort items, but not with the light source.
 * 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, or a Platform in the ceiling, floor, or side walls. This entrance does not need to be usable by the NPC (for example, NPCs can't use trap doors) nor does it have to lead "outdoors".

Note: The parts of the frame need to be adjacent horizontally or vertically; a single diagonal row of blocks does not count. A zigzag stair of blocks does, even if it's hammered to look like a smooth diagonal wall. A wall can include a column of platforms, but staircases are not acceptable (even if doubled).

Size


Again, a house must have at least 60 but less than 750 total tiles including the frame around it. Therefore, the dimensions of a House's outer frame must meet one of the following minimum requirements:

Background Walls


A house must have a background wall in order to be suitable.


 * Walls not placed by a player (such as naturally-occurring dirt walls) do not count, with the exception of Disc Walls 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 requirements
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; in particular, no "foreground blocks", platforms, or walls qualify. You must use one of the furniture 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.

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 rating by 1.
 * Each tile of Hallowed grass and Hallowed vines/plants reduces the corruption rating by 1. Pearlstone does not reduce the corruption rating.
 * Each Sunflower reduces a House's corruption rating by 5.

One NPC, Truffle, also has the special condition that his home must be in a Glowing Mushroom biome.

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, Crimson or Hallow in Hardmode.

Tips

 * 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.
 * 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. Note that the Player Sensor itself is not a valid block for the house frame; if it is used as part of the floor, ceiling, or side walls (including corners), the house will not be valid.
 * If absolutely necessary (e.g. on, where there's no housing menu), 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, Wii U & PS3), due to the fact that these consoles will not receive further updates to Terraria.
 * As long as the house meets the size criteria, it can be any shape, not just rectangles and squares. (e.g. You can have a dome shaped house and it would still be viable.)

History
Haus Maison Ház 집 Domy House Строительство 房屋