Is there any legitimate reason to have a direct vent between utility room and attic?
If the furnace and water heater are gas powered, it would be to provide adequate airflow for their combustion so that you don't get carbon monoxide forming in the utility room.  

Here's a link with some information.  An excerpt:


  The heating appliances are fully isolated from the living space with partitions. Figure 1 provides two vents to the outside, one within a foot of the ceiling and one within a foot of the floor. If vertical ducts are used to bring combustion air to the appliance each vent should be sized at one square inch of free vent area per 4000 BTUH of the appliance input rating.


(This is based on a half-remembered long-ago conversation with a service person working on my furnace and heater, which are in the center of my mostly-unfinished basement: I mentioned framing in a utility room around them and he said not to for that reason).