Outhouse

The Outhouse is the earliest toilet building in Oxygen Not Included, giving Duplicants a place to relieve themselves before more advanced sanitation is available. It reduces Stress and disease spread by keeping excrement out of the open, and it also satisfies the Toilet requirement for both the Latrine and Hospital rooms. However, it is a very basic solution and is usually replaced later by Lavatories, which do not require Duplicant maintenance.

Each use produces 19.7 kg of Polluted Dirt at a stable 37 °C, stored inside the building. After 15 uses, the Outhouse becomes full and must be manually emptied by a Duplicant as a Tidy errand, consuming 200 kg of Dirt in the process. While full or being emptied, it is considered out of order and cannot be used. One use also generates 200,000 Food Poisoning germs, split between the Duplicant, the Polluted Dirt, and the Outhouse itself, which makes nearby sanitation and cleanup important.

A full Outhouse will eventually spawn Morbs if left untouched long enough, so it should not be allowed to sit filled indefinitely. Placing a Compost nearby is a common way to keep Duplicants from hauling Polluted Dirt across the colony, since the waste produced by the Outhouse can be processed locally. One Compost can handle 60 kg of compostables per cycle, which is enough for roughly three or fewer normal Duplicants sharing a single Outhouse.

Useful points to keep in mind:

• Build several Outhouses early if you have multiple Duplicants, since each one must be emptied periodically.
• Put a Compost close by to reduce hauling time and keep Polluted Dirt contained.
• Replace Outhouses with Lavatories when possible, since Lavatories do not need manual emptying.
• An Outhouse cannot be placed in a Washroom.
• The Latrine room requires at least one toilet such as an Outhouse, at least one Wash Station, no industrial machinery, and a minimum size of 12 tiles.
• The Hospital room also accepts an Outhouse as its Toilet requirement.

The Outhouse is best viewed as a temporary sanitation building: cheap, simple, and effective early on, but labor-intensive and easy to overwhelm if a colony grows without upgrading its plumbing.