My in-laws have been running my spare MEP003 since last Friday in North AL. The cheap gas 8K set they had died after 20 hours of running and they paid $700 for it... Father in law changed oil yesterday, and it's running just about thier whole house and burning right at 1 GH.
I've got two of the MEP-003's and a civi gas generator with a cast iron engine.
My rule of thumb has been one hour of run time for the gas engine generator and two hours of cooling off before checking the oil and restarting.
My MEP-003's both use just over a gallon per hour at 80% load.
The longest I've been without power since owning a generator has been 16-20 hours due to a hurricane knocking out the juice.
On the infrequent times I've lost power, the gas generator has done everything needed. IMHO there is no reason to run a generator at night unless it's over 100 degrees and the AC has to run.
I'm not looking at powering the neighborhood, just my home. The neighbors can all suck lemons for all I care.