Open attic access from garage

[John H. Veivia]

Saw this for the first time today. Garage sheetraco ended at the height of interior finnished walls and was open at the trusses. This leaves an open air connection between the garage and the attic over the living area. Doesn't fire code require this to be sealed?

[Marcel R. Cyr]

Yes.

[Roy D. Cooke, Sr]

Originally Posted by mcyr

Yes.

But are we code inspectors .
How does it get written up .
It must have been aproved by the building inspector .

Roy Cooke sr.

[Larry D. Kage]

Possible verbage:

Recommend sealing garage/house fire/separation wall, completely, to bottom of roof sheathing with minimum 5/8" type X drywall for enhanced fire safety.

[Marcel R. Cyr]

Hi. Roy;

I don't think we need to be code enforcement officers to be able to dictate common sense like, ( I want to protect the house from anything that might happen in the garage.) So what is the logical thing to do except protect what you want protected and how is it normally done.?

The only code issues here is what pertains to safety and those are they only ones that should be brought up.
In my mind, not protecting the house from the garage, is a safety issue.

JMO.

Marcel

[David P. Valley]

http://www.nachi.org/forum/attachmen...0&d=1144509304

[Marcel R. Cyr]

Since we are all HI's, I would expect that you can relate to an issue as been brought fowarrd,
Should the Garage be fire-rated from the house?

Being a member of the NFPA, I would suggest that anyone note and write in their reports that there is a breach in the safety of the Home due the inadequacy of the protection required to protect the home from the uncontrollable consequences of Mechanical failer of the consumer products stored in the Garage.

Since this is a safety issue, I would reccommend immediate action to this notice.

Marcel

[tdutt]

Originally Posted by lkage

Possible verbage:

Recommend sealing garage/house fire/separation wall, completely, to bottom of roof sheathing with minimum 5/8" type X drywall for enhanced fire safety.

This is good, but remember to include a sentence in your paragraph on "fire-taping" the drywall after the drywall is hung to seal the deal. As a drywall contractor, I noticed the drywall in your photo was not taped along the cinder blocks. Taping the drywall is necessary to achieve the fire rating. All seams and joints should be taped, as well as the entire perimeter of the board (except along the floor for some reason).
Also, if this is the only access to the attic space, call out the need to add an attic access door that is fire-rated. Whenever homeowners add their own attic access doors to spaces above garages, they almost never use fire-rated doors.

[jhugenroth]

Originally Posted by rcooke

It must have been aproved by the building inspector .Roy Cooke sr.

Or missed, or conveniently overlooked......

[rlind]

Ahh....another house with an open attic access from the garage.
Brings back fond memories of my first paid HI years ago and the first major defect I noted.

[Marcel R. Cyr]

[quote=jhugenroth]Or missed, or conveniently overlooked......[/quote]

Goddarn it, if this stuff can happen within the Local Jurisdictions of Local Authorities, and get away with it, why are HI's being pulled in to litigation for the same reasons.??

If anyone's job is to provide Code Enforcement for the Community and paid by the Tax Payers and forgets out of convienience or plain does not see, I would be the first one to be talking to his or her Supervisors.

Marcel

[rrichards2]

I have seen many homes over the years here in southern Ontario with this type of scenario. I know that new code requires fire and gas proofing of the entire wall. Could it be that some older codes did not require this? If the later is true, this is not necessarily a defect in the home. I would make note of it as not being up to modern code and suggest to the purchasers that they should budget for sealing this area to new code requirements. This is just consequence of buying an older house and should not be a haggling point.

[rrichards2]

The water stains on that wall board may however be another story.

[whandley]

Hey Roy,

Do you guys have construction defect litigation in Canada? We have massive developments down here which end up in litigation with hundreds of code violations and safety concerns, "All signed off by the local building departments" The fact that something has a finaled permit certainly does not indicate it is correct. Signed off, yes. Correctly installed or constructed, not necessarily.