Extremely High Kilowatt Usage - Could PulsaCoil be on 24/7?

My daughter moved into a rented flat last November with her cousin and they received their first quarterly bill at the end of January. This was an estimated bill for a total of £360 and included separate details for the 11 days the flat was empty. During these 11 days an average of 27 units had been used - 27 units a day when the flat was supposed to be empty? We quickly concluded that the estimated bill was not going to be nearly enough based on this use. She has only just got access to the meter cupboard, has been reading the meter and has found that they are using between 40kw and 45 kw per day! The meter is a multi-rate watt hour meter and has a label on saying E10 - however they are not on an E10 tariff and from reading the forums it seems unlikely that they would be able to get on one now. We now know how the PulsaCoil A-Class works. In the PulsaCoil cupboard there are 3 switches. The first one has a timer next to it which has a cable to the boiler, it is switched on. The second one also has a cable to the boiler, is also switched on and has a red light glowing. The third one is switched off. She first thought about switching the PulsaCoil off for 24 hours to see if the usage lowered, however instructions state that the green rocker switch for the control circuit supply should not be switched off so as she didn't want to cause problems she decided to switch the timer control (not the socket switch) to off (it had been in the constantly on position). However, this did not make any difference to the usage over the 24 hour period and also she could hear that the PulsaCoil was making a noise which would suggest it was still on. Also when she pushes the boost switch (not that she has needed it boosting) no light comes on. This would suggest that the off-peak connection is on permanently. On moving into the flat they were not shown how to use the PulsaCoil by the letting agents and I imagine the agents don't know how it works. A couple of questions: Would it harm the unit to switch off the green rocker switch for the control circuit supply or indeed the two switches currently on. And what could the other switch, currently off be - okay maybe a light, I don't live near her. Sorry to be so long winded but any advice would be very much appreciated as they really can't afford to be paying £150 a month for electricity and they have not been having any heating on over the winter as they have been worrying about the cost.

Forgot to include that one day she set the timer to timed for 4 hours only and this did not reduce the number of units used over a 24 hour period.

Resurrecting this question in the hope that there may be some wisdom available....

Hello all. I'm renting and am "blessed" with what looks like a much repaired Class A. I'm also wondering why mine appears to be constantly heating water 24/7. Day or night I have hot water.

The switches I have are pictured but the timer settings make no difference at all to the unit. It does its own thing. My energy provider has an on and off peak rate so we could benefit from having control over this.

Any advice gratefully received on how I can achieve this.

Hi, as you will see I didn’t get any reply my question until yours now - I had an email notification. It is such a long time ago now and I don’t think I can help you. The only thing I can suggest is that the boost is on permanently. The girls are no longer in that flat but from memory they managed to set the timer to come on during the night for about 6 hours but this only gave them enough hot water for a shower each and to wash dishes so the boost would appear not to be on. Their electricity bills were still so high they thought they were paying for the whole complex. I do hope someone with knowledge can help you.

Thanks Whoosh77. Yes, I'm hoping someone might see this and shed some light on this. I've never seen a boiler like this before and hope never to see one again tbh!

Thanks for dropping by on this blast from the past :blush:

Assuming a supply at 35p per kW (that's what mine is), and assuming the immersion is on for three hours (in total)...
£0.35 x 3 (kilowatts) = £1.05 (per hour)
x 3 hours = £3.15 per day
x 365 days = £1,149 a year

However, in reality, your immersion might well not be on for 3 hours - ours is only on for 2 hours a day (going flat out), and that gives us four showers a day. Plus, in summer, you can get away with it being only on for an hour, easy. So that £1,149 actually drops down to three figures.