I inspected a house today with an attic fan installed in the garage ceiling, never seen this before. The fan is not vented to the exterior. Is this OK? fire separation, venting into attic.
If there is not a sufficient firewall between the house portion and the garage, then a significant fire hazard exists due to the fan being a breach in the firewall in the garage ceiling.
I’d write up myself!
could you imagine if a fire broke out in the garage and that fan sucked it strait up to the attic? i don’t like it either.
A garage area should provide at least a one hour protection to fire in all caeses if it is attached to the house.
An exhaust fan would breach that 1- hour protection and cause considerable damage to the structure for it’s existance.
Although, a true 1-hour protectection is qualified as 5/8" and two sides of the walls, and ceiling would require 1/2" + 7/8" hat shape channel and another layer of 1/2".
I would imagine that in Residential arenas that this does not happen to often anyways.
I would write it up as you did and hope that it is corrected in the future.
But, that is up to the client, is’nt it?
Good job.
Marcel 
There is a product that meets all codes nationwide in regards to fire rating for garage ventilation available from America’s Best Home Products.
On line google garge fan or go to coolmygarage.com 
for details.
I have inspected alot of them in homes here in AZ and the company that makes them is in Tempe AZ. The one in the picture is nothing more than a gable fan in the ceiling and would act as a chimminey. Here is what the GF-14 garage Fan looks like. It has a fire damper that closes in case of fire keeping the fire our of the attic.
It would still need to be ducted to the exterior
If it had a fire damper would it not be ok? Other the many reason you would not want this venting into the attic, fumes, dust and so on.
Installing the exhaust fan in the exterior wall of the garage to the exterior would solve many headaches. :)
Yep that would be the best
Too easy. :mrgreen:
Fire is certainly a major concern but what about a running car… carbon-monoxide through the house…someone could go to sleep and not wake up! Vent to the exterior or write it up for several safety reasons.