Swap tubes for compact fluorescents for better efficiency?

[Landycat]

I have four old (non electronic) 5 foot t8 58watt fluorescent tubes in my garage and I was wondering whether I could save power by replacing them with CFL bulbs.

Would I need to match the total wattage of the new CFL's to the total wattage of the existing tubes to get the same amount of light,or are CFL's more efficient?

 

[electronicsuk]

CFL and fluorescent tubes are effectively the same thing, CFL standing for Compact FLuorescent. There's no energy saving to be had like-for-like if you want to keep the same light output, if anything what you already have will perform better as the output is spread across the length of the tube rather than concentrated as with a CFL.

Whether or not you really need as much as 4x 58w fittings I can't answer.

 

[Chri5]

Subject to make a 5ft tube puts out about 3500 lumens, x 4 fittings that's 14k lumens.

21w CFL puts out about 1300, so you'd need about 10/11 to produce the same light.

Pretty sure that the start up current for a tube +50% for a few seconds makes no odds.

 

[Landycat]

Well if the total power consumption stays the same for the same level of light then there isn't much point in making any changes.
I was led to believe that fluorescent tubes weren't as energy efficient as CFLs,but it looks like I've been misled.

 

[sm1thson]

what colour is your garage? if it isnt already paint it white and it will be a lot brighter (and pleasant to be in) and you can loose a tube or two.