I have a friend who just moved to the US from the UK. He went from a
Victorian house with a gas (I think) tankless heating system to a modern
apartment with an electric water heater tank; a new situation for him. He
is responsible for the apartment utility bills.

He is frugal by nature and is used to having his domestic hot water system
on a timer. I doubt it would be practical to put a timer on the apartment's
water heater for the time he'll be there (and the apartment management might
not like the modification), but he has asked me whether he should turn off
the water heater when he leaves for work, and I wasn't sure of the answer.

My first thought was that he won't save much electricity -- it's not
especially hot water (set to child-safe temps by management, I assume) and
it's in an under-stair closet near the center of the building, so it's not
leaking a lot of heat to cold outdoors -- I think it might be served well
enough by wrapping the tank in an insulating blanket and wrapping the short
exposed length of pipe.

But I also began to wonder whether a circuit-breaker switch is designed to
hold up being switched on and off a couple of times a day, every day. Any
trouble liable to result from him using the circuit breaker to turn off the
water heater on a daily basis?

Thanks.