PACIFICA, Calif. — Cydney Crampton has done just about everything she can think of to decrease her use of energy.

In the 20 years since she moved into her small home in foggy Pacifica, she has installed double-pane windows, poured insulation everywhere it could possibly go and swapped out all her appliances for ones with the government's Energy Star efficiency rating.

Her combined gas and electric bill was running about $320 a month until she finally went whole-hog and put in a solar electric system for $28,000, which should pay for itself in nine years. It was turned on in March, and her bill for the month came to $85.

As part of the installation, she received an energy-efficiency audit by San Francisco-based Sustainable Spaces to help "zero out" her bill, or cut usage enough that solar power covers the entire amount.

In a time of environmental awareness, with its background hum of "green" advice emanating from everyone from Al Gore to the local utility company, it's not that easy to find a company that does full energy audits.

Just a few hundred firms in the U.S. do this in-depth, duct-testing, attic-scrambling, crawl-space-creeping work. The Environmental Protection Agency offers a way for consumers to find local auditors through its Home Performance with Energy Star program.

"We look a little like the Ghost Busters with all our weird buzzing, beeping equipment," says Matt Golden, president of Sustainable Spaces, as he installs a plastic cover with a fan set into it over Crampton's front door. The device depressurizes the house so air flow can be measured.

Once the house was depressurized, Golden and his energy technician, Tom DiCandia, walked throughout the home with devices that looked like thin tubes of caulk emitting tiny puffs of smoke. They held the wands near electrical outlets, doorjambs and anywhere else air might be sucked out because of poor insulation.

The drifting smoke indicated big gaps around newly installed French doors off Crampton's bedroom. The smoke wafted through gaps in the doorjamb to the patio outside.

Susan Anderson of Mountain View, Calif., likes the idea of saving the Earth, but what she really wanted to know was why her monthly utility bill went from $150 to $450.

"Granted, since we had the second baby, we turn on the heat more and we're doing more laundry, but still ... ," she says.

It took Anderson months to find someone who would come out to do an audit. She, too, turned to Sustainable Spaces. For $595, the firm sent out a two-member team that measured, mapped and tested every system in the house.

Sustainable Spaces has 12 employees and does 350 energy audits a year. It's building up its crews like mad because of the demand, Golden says.

At Anderson's house, Golden kept up a running commentary about common problems his staff finds in homes. The Andersons' furnace and air conditioner, like many, were in the garage. That's a problem, because if there isn't sufficient air flow from the interior return grates or if the filter is clogged, the heating and cooling system will suck cold, often polluted air from the garage.

Golden also found that many of the ducts that carry hot and cold air to the home's rooms had cracks where they connected with other vents or ducts. That's typical. "Most houses lose 30 percent of their hot or cold air out of breaks in their ducts."

That afternoon, Golden and two other staffers descended on the San Jose ranch house of Cliff and Monica Knudson. The couple and their two children live in a 1,300-square-foot, single-story home built in 1959. They've done a lot over the years to lower costs, such as blowing insulation into the attic and walls and replacing windows, but their energy bill is still typically $450 a month, says Cliff, an engineer.

He and Golden went around the house plugging a Kill-A-Watt power meter into outlets and measuring how much electricity each appliance drew. Knudson was surprised to learn that the family's various cell-phone and camera chargers draw as much energy when they don't have anything charging as when they do.

But the real eye-opener came when Golden crawled behind the family's home entertainment center and plugged everything in through the wattage meter.

The total came to 800 watts when the family's plasma screen TV is turned on and a shocking 100 watts even when it isn't. "So you're paying $200 a year not to watch TV," Golden told Knudson.

In the kitchen, the 10 recessed lights from the 1980s drew 650 watts of power when on. Changing them to compact fluorescent bulbs would save 25 percent of electricity costs, Golden said.

Compact fluorescent technology has gotten much better in the past 10 years, he says, but because bulbs are still pricey, most big hardware stores and supermarkets sell the cheapest kinds, which give off weird light and don't fit all fixtures. Golden recommended Energy Federation Inc. as a source of light-balanced bulbs that will fit into everything from candelabras to the popular recessed lights of the 1980s and '90s.