by Richard Ewald Remodelers counteract earth movement with cable compression and a concrete grade beam When asked last fall to convert a 21x21-foot brick schoolhouse in Westminster, Vt. to a private residence, Wells & Company faced a considerable challenge. The nineteenth-century, one-room schoolhouse had stood unused for about 70 years. In that time the old dry-laid fieldstone foundation had settled, and this caused one corner to fall and the walls to pivot out at the top and in at the bottom. This opened cracks of up to 2 inches in the back wall (see Figure 1). One goal of the renovation was to preserve as much of the existing structure and appearance as possible. That meant leaving the unmortared fieldstone foundations
