Electric company will be coming out to look in the next few days.
In the meantime it is all our fault (of course).
Regarding the heat tape shorting to ground. I will take a look at it tomorrow (good suggestion).
Thanks for the math on the electric heater. That is amazing so there is 1,000 right there. Combine that with extra electric from the heat tape, holiday lights on the home, and welder and we clearly bumped them in to a higher tier.
coolbreeze01 - well said. We were getting ready to move on this next weekend/ early next week anyways.