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.

The Angler, Goblin Tinkerer, Mechanic, Stylist and Wizard will each make their initial appearances regardless of available Houses. 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
A 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. There 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 NPC needs at least one solid (non-platform) block to stand on at night. This block 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, or a teleporter anywhere it's placeable.

Size


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:

Background 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 Island structures, 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 is 4x4, 16 in total. The hole cannot exceed 4x4 or 16 tiles.). 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 monsters 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.

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.

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.

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.
 * Players can build an infinite house. This way, you can hold an unlimited amount of NPCs, and you can save time. No longer works on 1.3.1
 * In Mobile, players can force an NPC into a particular house by destroying all the others.

History
Maison