House

Main / Structures / House

Description

A house is a structure meant for living, storage, as a gateway, or simply for decoration. In Wurm, these can be built of wood, timber and clay, or various types of bricks. Houses must be built on flattened ground.

Planning a House

Note: In the Wurmpedia, we will use "ground/first floor" to refer to the floor of the house that touches the ground.

In order to create a house, you will first need a mallet to create a plan. Activate your mallet and right-click the flat tile you want to start the building on. Select Plan Building. You can plan further tiles of the same house the in the same manner as long as they are adjacent to the initial house tile. Once you have completed your housing plan, right-click on the plans of the building and select Finalize Build Plan. You may still edit the plan of the building after you have finalized by right-clicking the tile you want to build on and selecting Add to building plan. This can be done even after all of the house is complete by destroying a single wall and expanding the building through Add to building plan.

If you made a mistake, you can delete a part of the plan by right-clicking the tile of the plan you want to remove and select Remove Plan Here If you want to delete the entire plan, right-click the structure and select Structure > Destroy structure. You will be given a confirmation window to make sure this is what you want to do.

Once you have finalized the build plan, you are required to complete the ground/first floor before you will be allowed to build another floor.

Creation

Building a house is based on the carpentry skill for wooden and timber framed houses and a mixture of both carpentry and masonry for stone or brick houses. There is no minimum carpentry skill requirement for a one tile (1x1) house. If your house is to be made out of stone, 30 masonry skill is required.

To create, right-click one of the wall sections and select Add to Crafting Window. There are various wall plans and they require masonry & carpentry skill and a trowel for stone options; mallet and carpentry only for wood and timber framed options. Place the tool in the crafting window to see the options available to you. To start the creation process, you will also need to have the crafting items required in your inventory. Depending on the house style, this may be large nails and planks, stone bricks and mortar, wooden beams, etc.

Once you have finished all of the wall plans for the ground/first floor, the house is considered complete, and you can move on to create more houses.

Naming

When the plan is finished the building will be given a default name that consists of the creator's name and a designation depending on the size of the house. The name can be changed through permissions management.

Designations used, based on number of tiles:

• shed - 1 - 2
• shack - 3
• cottage - 4 - 5
• house - 6
• villa - 7 - 10
• mansion - 11 - 20
• estate - 21 - 30
• stronghold - 31 - 65

House Plan Examples

Numbers listed above each plan is the minimum carpentry skill required for the ground/first floor of a wooden or timber house.

1-4 tiles

0    3     6          7      9       
X    XX    XX  XXX    XX    XXXX  XXX  XXX
           X          XX          X     X 

5 tiles

10     12
XXX    XXXXX  XXXX  XXXX  XXX  XXX  X      X   X   X
XX            X      X    X X  X    XXX  XXX  XXX  XX
                               X    X    X     X    XX

6 tiles

11     13
XXX    XXXX  XXXX  XXX   XXX  XXX
XXX    XX     XX    XXX   XX   XX
                           X   X
15                                                     
XXXXXX  XXXXX  XXXXX  XXXXX  XXXX  XXXX   XXXX   XXX
        X       X       X    X  X  X X   XX     XX X

 XXXX  XXXX  X      X      X      X  XXX
 X      X    XXXX  XXXX  XXXX  XXXX  XXX 
 X      X    X     X     X     X      XX

Larger examples

16   27    40     55      72       91
XXX  XXXX  XXXXX  XXXXXX  XXXXXXX  XXXXXXXX
XXX  XXXX  XXXXX  XXXXXX  XXXXXXX  XXXXXXXX
XXX  XXXX  XXXXX  XXXXXX  XXXXXXX  XXXXXXXX
     XXXX  XXXXX  XXXXXX  XXXXXXX  XXXXXXXX
           XXXXX  XXXXXX  XXXXXXX  XXXXXXXX
                  XXXXXX  XXXXXXX  XXXXXXXX
                          XXXXXXX  XXXXXXXX
                                   XXXXXXXX

The formula to calculate the carpentry skill needed to build a house is the number of tiles + the number of outer walls - 5. For example: a 4 by 4 wall has 16 tiles and 16 outer walls so it would take 27 carpentry on the ground/first floor. For multi-story houses the formula is the same but there's an additional requirement based on the number of floors.

Doughnut Houses and Other Non-standard Houses

Some styles of housing, like doughnut houses (a house shaped like a ring, with a hollow center) or other non-square shapes, may require a higher carpentry skill that these numbers give, because of interior walls required. Make sure you account for interior as well as exterior walls in your calculations. It may be easier to plan these kinds of houses row by row instead of all at once, if your carpentry skill is not high enough. Planning all outside walls, then inside, may work for a doughnut house as well.

Adding a Roof

Plan and completely build the walls before adding a roof. Roofs are planned by activating a mallet and right-clicking the tiles on the ground beneath you. Each tile needs to be planned, then built with the required materials. You however, cannot build a roof on a house underground.

Adding a Floor

Plan and completely build the walls before adding a floor. Floors are planned by activating a mallet and right-clicking the tiles on the ground beneath you. Each tile needs to be planned and built with the necessary materials. Alternately, you can pave the floors on your ground/first floor, using the paving skill. This will result in snow indoors during the winter months (this has no effect on play, but you may or may not like the look.)

Doors & Locks

You'll need at least one door on your house (if you want to be able to leave!). Both single and double doors allow a cart to drive through. All doors to the outside should have locks and be locked. Without a lock, humanoid monsters may chase you inside and unwelcome players may also enter. If you are on deed in a finished house (first/ground floor completely built), on a PVE server, with correct permissions set, your possessions are safe, but no one wants unwelcome visitors. Install a lock, and then you can allow players and friends to visit anyway.

Stone/Brick Housing

A stone house is stronger than a regular wooden house. A stone house takes more skills and resources to build, but offers more protection from decay, theft, and invaders. At least 30 skill in masonry is required in order to build a stone house, a player with less than 30 skill in masonry can not start or continue building a stone house.

Underground Housing

It is possible to build houses in caves. You can build any type of wall underground, however you cannot build roofs in cave dwellings.

In order to do this you would need to activate a hammer, mallet, or trowel and right-click a flat, reinforced cave floor tile. Houses can only be built touching a cave wall if and when all the tiles are on deed and they do not have an adjacent perimeter tile. If any of the adjacent tiles are perimeter tiles the perimeter tile must be mined out. Alternatively, houses in caves cannot be built touching a cave wall if they are off deed. If you attempt to plan a house that is outside the previously stated parameters you will get the following message: You cannot build here, there must be a gap around the building.

NB: Houses built underground are safe from cave ins.

Multi-Story Housing

Buildings can be constructed with multiple stories, but each one requires higher skill to build. You'll need to build a staircase or ladder opening to get to higher levels.

Carpentry Skill Needed

The more floors your house has, the more skill is needed; see the table below for the required skill levels. Only the first (ground) floor planning needs 1 carpentry skill per wall and 1 skill per tile minus 5. With 5 skill a roof may be placed over the first floor, but not an opening or floor above. The roof counts as the same story you are currently building and does not require any extra skill to roof. For example, a roof added to a 8 story building would still only require 70 skill.

Floors Skill Requirement 1 0 2 21 3 30 4 39 5 47 6 55 7 63 8 70 9 77 10 83 11 88 12 92 13 95 14 97 15 98 16 99

How to Make a Second, Third, etc Level in Your Building

Plan and completely build the ground/first floor outer walls. Activate a mallet on a ground tile and plan a floor above. Plan at least one tile with an opening above to make a ladder or plan your staircase. Build the floors from below, then climb your ladder. Activate a mallet, right-click tile borders to plan walls on your new level.

Repairing & Improving

• Any damage must be repaired on a house before improving it.
• Repairs and improvements are made with one of the same items used to create it: planks, bricks, or stones.
• Only 10 ql of damage can be fixed at a time. Heavy damage to a building will require multiple planks/bricks/stones.
• To improve the ql of a house wall, the improving item must be higher ql than the wall itself. For example, use a 20 ql plank to improve a 10 ql wall.

Permissions & Safety

A house preserves your possessions by reducing decay on all servers, and protects them from theft on PVE servers. If the doors are equipped with a door lock, no one may enter your house except the friends you give permissions to, unless the door is lockpicked (Lockpicking only applies to PvP servers). Freedom servers do not allow lockpicking of houses.

On the Freedom server, a locked house is the single best protection against theft. Whether on deed or off, houses there cannot be bashed down or lockpicked, though anyone can enter if you do not put door locks on all doors. Since a house's locks cannot be picked on Freedom, the door lock's quality isn't really very important there.

Beds, which are useful for gaining sleep bonus, only work when inside a house.

If the owner of a house has not logged in for 3 months, the house is marked as abandoned, and takes much higher decay damage.

Permissions Management

When the house is fully planned, you will see it under the Building Management window. The house can be managed by right-clicking on the house and selecting Permissions > Manage Building. In the management window you can modify various settings for the house. These settings will not take effect until all of the first floor walls are complete. The May Enter permission will not work until the doors are locked.

You can change the name of the house or transfer ownership from the Building Permission window.

Notes

• You may have a total of 16 floors.
• Carpentry is the primary skill checked for planning each floor and building floors, openings, staircases, walls, and fences out of wood.
• Paving skill is required for stone floors, openings, and staircases.
• Masonry skill is required for stone walls, fences, parapets, as well as pottery and slate roofs. Multistory masonry structures also require the necessary carpentry skill level.
• Thatching skill is required for thatch roofs.
• Some materials might have higher skill requirements than the numbers mentioned below, in which case the highest requirement applies.
• You can not build floors above fences, walls, or parapets.
• You can haul carts up ladders to get them to an upper floor.
• You can fall and take damage from upper floors if there is no wall/fence on the roof to stop you. (Please be careful as people have died in 1 fall from 4th floor drops).
• Ladders will always be on the south side of the opening.
• The ground/first floor must be complete before walls on the 2nd can be planned. This is not true, however, of any additional floors.
• Where a mallet is mentioned, a hammer can be used in its place.
• When you destroy a structure, all items on upper levels will fall to the ground.
• 1kg of dye is needed to color one house wall.

Warning Messages while Building or Planning

The ground is not flat enough.

The highest slope of where you are trying to plan your building exceeds 0. Since multistory buildings have been added houses can only be planned on absolute flat surfaces.

Your structure must connect everywhere.

You tried to plan a tile that is not connected to the rest of your plan.

You need space to build the walls. Another building is too close.

You tried to plan a building within one tile of another building.

There is already a building there.

You tried to extend the plan of your building within one tile of another building.

Only the owner of <House name> can remodel it.

You tried to add an inner wall to a house that is not owned by you.

You are not skilled enough in carpentry to extend your house in that direction.

You tried to make your house bigger than your carpentry level allows.

You must finish the outer walls first.

You tried to plan an inner wall without having finished the outer walls.

<Deed name> does not allow that.

You tried to plan your building in the perimeter of a foreign settlement.

This action is not allowed here, because the tile is on a player owned deed that has disallowed it.

You tried to plan your building on a foreign settlement that disallows you from building on it.

Houses need at least one door. Build a door first.

You tried to continue the second to last wall without having a door planned.

You are not allowed to expand <Player's name> planned structure.

You tried to add to a building plan before finishing the plan.

You can't build on water.

Occurs when trying to plan a house on a tile that is 1 or more dirts below the water table.

The water is too deep.

Occurs when trying to build a fence on a tile that is 1 or more dirts below the water table.

You cannot build here, there must be a gap around the building.

Occurs when trying to plan a house in a cave that does not have a buffer around it when the cave is against the deed border. Also can occur when trying to plan a house in a cave when the house is off deed.

You need to build in connection with a finished neighboring floor, roof or wall.

Occurs when trying to plan a roof or floor that is not adjacent to an already finished floor/roof/or lower wall. Finish the adjacent tiles first before you can plan this tile.

The ceiling is too close.

Occurs underground when trying to add a tile to a building plan when the cave ceiling above would be too low for a single storey building. Mine the cave ceiling a little first, before planning this tile.

See Also

• Toolkits - unofficial and unsupported house planning tools.

Images

• 

  An underground tunnel/housing

• 

  Large stone house

• 

  Wood and timber framed house

For additional housing creation inspiration

• Category:Floors
• Category:Walls
• Category:Fences
• Category:Roofs
• Category:Openings