How to Set a Ledger-Free Deck Footing

Published September 24, 2026

Most decks tie into the house with a ledger board — a piece bolted to the rim joist that the deck framing hangs from. A ledger-free (or "free-standing") deck skips that connection entirely and stands on its own posts and beams on all four sides, including the side nearest the house. Builders reach for this approach for a specific reason: the ledger-to-house connection is one of the more common sources of water intrusion and rot on an older deck, since it requires cutting into the house's siding and sheathing, flashing that cut correctly, and maintaining that flashing for the life of the deck. Skip the ledger, skip that specific failure point.

It isn't the right call for every deck — a ledger-free design needs its own posts and footings along the house side too, which is more digging and concrete than a ledger-attached deck needs. It tends to make the most sense on a house with siding or a foundation type that makes a clean, well-flashed ledger connection difficult, or when a deck sits over a walkout basement or other detail where a ledger tie-in isn't practical to begin with.

Whichever style of deck you're building, the footings are where it actually lives or dies, and that part of the job is the same either way:

1. Call 811 before digging anything. This is a free utility locate service, and skipping it on the theory that "it's an established yard" is exactly how a buried gas or electrical line gets hit. Do this several business days ahead, not the morning you plan to dig.
2. Lay out and square the footing locations. Batter boards and mason's line let you set the deck's outer corners, then check both diagonals — if they're equal, the layout is square. This matters more on a ledger-free deck than a ledger-attached one, since there's no house wall to reference and correct against as you go.
3. Dig below the frost line. Minnesota Rule 1303.1600 sets minimum footing depth at 42 inches in the southern part of the state, up to 60 inches in the northern zone — it varies by jurisdiction, so confirm the exact required depth with your local building official rather than assuming. A footing that doesn't reach below frost depth will heave as the ground freezes and thaws, which shows up as a deck that's slowly gone out of level over a few winters. Bell the bottom of the hole out slightly wider than the tube for better bearing, if your local code allows it.
4. Set and brace the sonotube form plumb, at the correct height above grade, and braced so it can't shift while concrete is placed and vibrated. A form that leans even slightly throws off the post base position at the top, which compounds into a beam and joist layout that's fighting itself.
5. Let it cure before framing loads it. Concrete needs real time (days, not hours) before it's ready to bear post and beam framing weight — rushing this step is a common source of a footing that cracks or settles slightly under the first real load. This is about the framing, not the post base anchor itself: a wet-set anchor goes into the concrete during the pour, well before cure, and just sits there curing along with the footing until framing goes on top of it.
6. Set the post base to layout, not just to "looks about right." A post base anchor can either be embedded into the wet concrete at pour time (so it's already in place once the footing cures) or drilled and epoxied in after the concrete has fully cured — pick one method, not both, and either way a post base set even an inch off will throw the beam length and joist layout out of square by the time it reaches the outer edge of the deck.

A concrete volume worth double-checking before you order: for round sonotube footings, volume is π × radius² × height, and it adds up faster than people expect across six or eight footings on a larger deck. Our free Concrete Volume & Bags calculator handles sonotube piers specifically (along with slabs and continuous footings), so you're not guessing at bag counts on delivery day. Once footings and framing are in, the Deck Boards & Joists calculator and Stair Calculator cover the rest of the material takeoff.

See the Decks tools page for the post hole digger, post level, and concrete tools this job actually calls for, and the Concrete/Masonry tools page for finishing tools if you're also pouring a patio or walkway at the same time.

This is a job where getting the footings wrong is expensive to fix after the fact — once a deck is framed and decked over a footing that's shallow or out of position, correcting it means pulling the deck back apart. If you're not confident on the layout, depth, or concrete work, that's a reasonable point to bring in a licensed contractor for the framing even if you're planning to finish the decking yourself.