| Many places here are over-illuminated many times over the actual needed amount of light. Either by an overkill installation of lighting in the 1st place, or by light spills from nearby areas where powerfull lighting was installed later, or other causes. Converting to low power CFLs reduces light amount many times, often still well above the amount of light actually needed, sometimes below it but not much (while all CFLs are still intact)
Mercury lamps last 20+ years untill they just stop working, and this is the amount of time they are kept in the fixtures. The new CFLs can be indeed significantly brighter than the 10-20 year old mercury. This of course serves as proof that CFLs are so many times more efficent than mercury and save 80% power. Nobody thinks that maybe the fixture would have to be relamped 5 times with new mercury lamps by now, then it would output the proper amount of light. I can confirm this one myself - when i was a kid and found my mercury fixture (and i recognized others of this model in use elsewhere), i installed a new mercury lamp in it. It did output maybe 4 times more light than i expected (as i seen in old fixtures with 125W mercury lamps) - i wondered if its even the same type of lamp that i used
CFLs are advertised very hard as THE MOST efficient lamp. Then, somebody from the techs compares the perceived amount of light from his CFL that is installed INDOORS, to that of a HID lamp that is installed OUTDOORS. Ofcourse the 32W CFL is easily brighter than the 150W MH - the CFL is lighting the room blindingly bright, and the MH is lighting the street with a ghostly gloom. So CFLs are really that efficeint, so lets use them. Only after CFL s bought and installed, it is discovered that light amount is insuficient
Over the last 10 years a unique building / finishing / aura style developed in Israel, which can be seen in allmost all residential building from the last few years - this includes near all buildings from apartment houses, villas, community centers etc. Part of this style is tendition to use 2700-4000K fluorescent lighting even where it is not really appropriate. And since CFLs are the cheapest way to get this lighting, they are extensively used in this building style. And since in recent times Eurolux are among the CFLs with the best value/$, they are the CFLs of choice for very large amount of this installations. Now, many older regions which are not "up to code" in style try to "get in", they do what they can. Installing warm white CFLs is cheaper than rebuilding facades of buildings
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