On 2010-07-08, Steve Barker wrote:

We've recently purchased a house (next door) and it has the typical farm
setup, (meter on the pole with a disconnect, and three wires to the
house).

Three wires to the house is acceptable unless (1) there is some other
metallic path between the house and the pole (e.g. a phone line) or
(2) you are working on the feeder and are subject to the 2008 or later
NEC (existing feeders are OK). In either of those cases, you need a 4
wire feeder with an explicit EGC, and then at the house the grounds
and neutrals are kept separate (with the grounding electrodes
connected to the ground, not the neutral).

The difference with this one is that there is a second panel
that was added in about 1960, when they added on to the house, which i
assumed at first was just a sub off the main panel. I just noticed
today that the second panel is ALSO tied into the feeders just outside
the house and so it in effect is a second main panel. Are there any
issues with it being this way as long as each panel has it's own pair of
proper ground rods? Should the two be bonded together either at the
ground rods OR between the two panels?

All grounding electrodes (e.g. ground rods) at a building must be
interconnected. It is fine to have a single pair of ground rods for
both panels; you could run the grounding electrode conductor to one
panel and then a jumper to the next panel. If you have more than two
rods, you still have to interconnect all the rods.

Also, in your situation with two main panels, the feeder neutral
should be connected to the grounding electrode system at each of the
main panels. This is the rare case where you interconnect ground and
neutral at more than one location in a building.

Cheers, Wayne