If you have natural gas for home heating, you can have the genset hooked up to run on natural gas, or maybe propane. I'm not well informed on how to do that, but i'm quite sure there are folks here who have done that! Somebody will surely tell you how to accomplish the task. One friend has his setting in his garage, with the exhaust running outside. This keeps the genset from growing legs and running away!
And, you should run it once a week, to keep it in good running order. Especially if you use gasoline for fuel.

Fueling IMO would be safer shut down. unless you had a remote tank outside the building. As far as the thing heating up I would think in Mo. in the winter or spring that wouldn't be a problem. But, during summer I would leave the doors wide open for the best circulation possible. Even in the winter I would crack the doors for some ventilation. But thats me.

If everbody in the area has no power I wouldn't worry about the noise. If you are running the gen to save on elect. all hours of the day, then I would try and find a better muffler or think about adding another one outside the building if you think it will disturb the neighbors

i refuel our gas gennys without shutting them down, though i do NOT recommend it.

as far as the heat, you need to provide fresh cool air to help. you could get a gable vent fan if neccessary, but personally i would just put a louvered gabled vent in that you can open when the genny is running. most of the noise of the genny is going to be fromteh exhaust, not the motor itself.

davidandkasie, How do you go about fueling your genny? I bought a small battery powered pump that has a hose that goes into the gas can and the other one into the genny tank. So far I only have used it when the genny has been shut off but I haven't spilt any gas at all. I'm just looking for a different and hopefully better way. Thanks guys for all the replies.