Grounding. I need to pick your brains.

[W5BRM]

Been running over ideas about grounding in my shack. Question about safety ground i.e. grounding my equipment.

Been researching a bit and I'm getting confusing answers. I want to ground my equipment.

I have a HF rig, Antenna tuner and a power supply. Each has a tie in for a ground strap.

I plan on setting up like this: Each peice of equipment will have individual short braided copper lead to a copper bus bar. Copper bus bar will have one short 5-6 ft x 3 inch copper strap going to 8ft ground outside the shack. All short lead stuff.

I get confused after this.

Should I run more then 1 ground rod into the ground spaced so far apart maxing out at 3 ground rods?

and THIS IS THE REALLY CONFUSING ONE:

SHould this ground system run to the house grounding where the AC line comes into the house?

I have been researching this on the net and I get conflicting answers... I had always been taught that one should never tie into the house or service ground... i think this is probably incorrect but im not sure. Some people say that tie into the house service ground, you risk setting up a ground loop and energizing your equipment which is bad. Others say isolating the equipment from the service main does the same thing and creates lightning hazard.

If I should tie into the service ground, do I need to direct tie my ground rods to the service ground rod with copper wire or can attaching a cold water line to my ground rods do this for me?

Which way should I do this?

I am away from the house and dont have any access to my ARRL books and the ARRL has all thier important info parked behind the pay wall....err i mean members only area

Thanks

Brian