BLOG QUESTION ADV: PAPER AMPS

What is the concept of paper amps? Why is it so important to keep in mind when you are lighting on set?
You are lighting a scene and using the following lights:

1000w tungsten fresnel
750w open faced tungsten light
650w tungsten fresnel
2 - 300w tungsten fresnel's

How many amps would this setup draw? If you had to use this inside a house, how would you go about safely setting this up?

To calculate paper amos, you have to use this formula: paper amps= total watts/100. A breaker box tells you how many amps you have at your disposal in each room of a. building. You want your wattage to be below the amount of amps allowed per room. Its important to know how many amps you are able to use because depending on the wattage of your lights, you could possibly pop the breaker/fuse. The equation doesn't give you the exact number of amps you're going to use, but a safety zone.

100 + 750 + 650 + (2)300= 2100/100= 21 amps. If I had to set this up, I would make sure that the rooms are able to handle this amount of wattage, or figure out where i could run a stinger from to support this.