silent fire alarms!

[Guest sally]

I hope someone can help answer my question I live in a block of 55 flats over 5 floors and it appears that when the fire alarm is activated by pressing the break glass points the residents do not actually hear an alarm, (the lift stops working though) is this legal? There is a fire panel on the ground floor showing where the alarm was raised/pressed.  If there were to be a fire how are we supposed to know to vacate especially if its the middle of the night, there are no fire extinguishers either  but there are water risers hoses type things on the staircases presumably for the fire brigade to use.  I cant get any answers from the landlord (a major housing assoc) or the property manager as to what actually happens or why there is no sounding alarm.  Each flat does have its own smoke detector.  Thank you for reading 

[Tom Sutton]

The fire alarm test is detailed in https://www.firesafe.org.uk/fire-alarms/ and the weekly test is done by operating a manual call point to ascertain if the fire alarm is working and everybody can hear it. The building could have a stay put policy therefore may not be a fire alarm it could be there to operate the automatic opening vents. (AOV) Without more information I cannot give you a more definitive answer.

[AnthonyB]

Sounds like a stay put block where the alarm system is there for the purposes of operating smoke control and has no sounders (or had them removed), but they left the call points. Is the alarm monitored?

The FRA should detail the rationale behind the set up - it isn't automatically wrong.