Happy holidays! This post is being released shortly after Black Friday and Cyber Monday and the kickoff of the holiday shopping season. I’m sure, like many of you, the gift-giving season can feel somewhat exhausting, so why not give the gift of clean air? My husband and I often find ourselves not having any idea what to get each other. After 12 years of marriage and three kids, we generally like to spend money on experiences or our home together. So gifting your own family the gift of healthier air—and a healthier family—and potentially saving money on energy costs and healthcare expenditures could be a great idea.
The holidays are a time for spending on those we love, and we are frequently asked if there is anything we want. In the clinic, I often care for people with significant lung disease who are either on fixed incomes or whose trouble breathing has led to limits on economic opportunities, leaving them very price-sensitive. With climate change and increasing allergens, pollen, and air pollution, I’m also seeing more people earlier in their lives who are affected by air quality and who want to know what they can do about it. An investment in clean air always pays off. On a prior post, I plugged in our clean-air expenditures as a country into retirement calculators to look at the amazing returns on investment. However, sometimes there is an upfront financial cost—whether in buying a HEPA filter or options to replace the nitrogen dioxide emissions from a gas stove, etc. So for this post, I’m going to go through things you could consider buying for yourself or a loved one as part of a gift of clean air for the next year—or as a gift for yourself and your family, thinking ahead to the coming year.
We’ll start with small gifts and go up to larger expenditures. I’m going to talk about money specifically, because often people think they would love to breathe healthier air in their home or in their community, but that getting it is just too expensive—and that really isn’t the case.
Let’s start with a good workhorse: the portable air cleaner.
Consider a gift of a HEPA filter, with or without a carbon or activated charcoal filter.. A HEPA filter can remove particulate matter that comes from wildfire smoke, outdoor air pollution, or even someone smoking in the home—though of course it’s better to have a non-smoking home. It also reduces viral particles to help decrease the spread of sickness and removes pet allergens, pollen and more.
You really want to make sure that this air cleaner is either a HEPA filter or, even more budget-friendly, a MERV-13 filter attached to a simple box fan. HEPA stands for “high-efficiency particulate air,” and MERV stands for “minimum efficiency reporting value” and both can remove the tiny particulates like PM2.5 and smaller that can go deep into our lungs and make us ill. What you basically want is a device that will move air across a filter to remove particulates from the air. You want to avoid anything that is putting chemicals into the air such as an ionizer or an ozone generator and making claims to “clean” the air. These are not healthy for people to breathe indoors. There’s a lot about ionizers we don’t know, but there is a risk of them generating secondary chemicals and forming compounds that can be harmful to health.
How do you decide whether you should also look for an activated charcoal filter? Activated charcoal is designed to bind gas-phase compounds. The people who would likely benefit from this are those who think there is reason to have high levels of nitrogen dioxide in the home. One of the biggest culprits is gas appliances—specifically gas stoves. They can generate a large amount of nitrogen dioxide. Using a HEPA filter with an activated charcoal component has been shown to decrease nitrogen dioxide levels in the home. Of course, it’s better to not put the nitrogen dioxide into the air in the first place, and we can talk about that a little later in the podcast.
HEPA and carbon filters can clean the air and improve health, especially if you are someone with lung disease, which describes many of the people I meet. For example: one randomized trial took a box that looked like a HEPA filter—same box, same noise—but without the filters inside. They placed it in the home. Then they placed another identical-looking box that did have HEPA and carbon filters inside. They put one in the bedroom and one in the most-occupied room. The researchers used sensors to confirm that people actually turned the units on, and they monitored health outcomes at 1 week, 3 months, and 6 months, while also monitoring particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide levels. This was a study of over 100 people over the age of 40 with COPD, and—as you would expect—the homes with real filters showed decreased levels of PM2.5 and nitrogen dioxide and the people living in those homes needed less rescue medication, breathed better, and needed less medical attention for their lung disease.
So what about money—how much are these filters going to cost? It depends on the size of the room you are trying to clean. Larger rooms need larger filters, and smaller rooms use smaller filters. The nice thing is these things are additive: you could use two medium-sized filters to clean a large room, and it’s not going to hurt anything to have a large filter in a small room—you’ll just have extra clean air.
Upfront costs for a MERV-13 filter attached to a box fan are often lower, but over time a HEPA filter can have similar or lower annualized costs as you move from buying the device in the first year to just replacing filters afterward. Maybe you could make it a tradition to buy your loved ones their replacement filters each year—it makes it easier to have one thing already off their shopping list.
Depending on the room size and how much you want to remove from the air, HEPA filters can run anywhere from less than $30 to around $300 for a large room. Adding things like charcoal filters can increase the price. Replacement filters can often be found in the $20 range in subsequent years.
Moving up the price range: for the lawn-care enthusiast
Consider purchasing electric lawn equipment. My neighborhood this fall was filled with the whine of loud, polluting leaf blowers. Gas-powered leaf blowers are often one of the largest sources of both noise pollution and air pollution. A single two-stroke engine backpack leaf blower operating for 30 minutes emits as much air pollution as driving a 2011 Ford F-150 from North Texas to Anchorage, Alaska. In emissions inventories across multiple areas, lawn equipment is responsible for a significant share of pollution.
This is obviously not good for the health of the person operating it, nor for the people living nearby. Fortunately, there are many options beyond the old-fashioned rake (which is still a perfectly good option!). You could buy your loved one an electric leaf blower—there are a wide range of models, including backpack-style designs. There are also lawn vacuums that can vacuum up and mulch leaves, which can be used to enhance lawn and garden health.
Depending on power and design, gas-powered leaf blowers range from about $38 to several hundred dollars. Electric leaf vacuums can be found around the $70 range. There are even combination devices that blow, vacuum, or mulch depending on what you need.
For homes with a gas stove
If you or a loved one lives in a home with a gas stove and has concerns about nitrogen dioxide, you can get them a HEPA filter with an activated charcoal filter to help decrease it as we discussed above. This study showed that type of air purifier can decrease NO2 exposure in the home.
Obviously, it’s also a great idea to consider whether you want to be emitting all that nitrogen dioxide in the first place. When we had a gas stove, I received the gift of a single induction burner, and I used it for years for most of my single-burner cooking. It was a great option for quick meals where only one burner is needed. I used much less of the gas stove until we finally changed to induction, which has been a great gift for our whole family—we cook faster, I’m not worried about my kids catching their clothing on fire or leaving a burner on, and they’re not inhaling nitrogen dioxide while cooking.
If you want to go bigger, you could consider changing to an electric or induction stove. The price tag is usually at least $1,000, depending on the model, which is why it took us a while to get it done as well!.
The science is clear: changing from a gas stove to an electric stove dramatically decreases harmful exposure to nitrogen dioxide. This has been shown in several studies; nitrogen dioxide levels fall from unhealthy ranges to healthy ranges with a change in cookstove.
Cleaning the heating…
Finally, swinging for the big expensive presents: you can look into whether your home’s heating relies on indoor combustion. A lot of people burn wood, pellets, or other fuels inside their home to save money on electricity or gas. With the explosion of AI data centers and other factors driving up energy costs, there are many reasons people look for alternatives.
There are a host of things you can do to make the air inside cleaner. If you have an open fireplace, you could consider switching to a wood stove. If your wood stove is uncertified, you could consider switching to an EPA-certified wood stove, which can decrease fine particulate matter emissions. Even better are pellet stoves. Oil or gas furnaces also have lower emissions than burning directly in the living space. However, where I live, many people choose to burn things they can gather for free from the woods.
Stove upgrades can cost money, but you can look into whether your county or city has incentive or assistance programs to help. Maybe your gift for a family member who relies on an unhealthy heating source could include helping them navigate a local upgrade program.
If you want to go really big, it may be time to look into whether a heat pump would be a benefit. Obviously, you can’t wrap a heat pump and put it under the tree, but if this is something you want to consider for your family, a “promissory note” to install a heat pump in the coming year might be a meaningful gift. This can be especially helpful if you are currently relying on indoor combustion for heat or are worried about energy bills.
One study of over 1,300 individuals in a boiler-upgrade program who installed heat pumps from 2022 to 2024 saw their gas demand drop by 90%, net energy use decline by 40%, and a 70% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions over the heat pump’s lifespan. With surging demand on utility grids, there are many utility programs, incentives, rebates, and loans available to help people install heat pumps to decrease grid demand. Since no one likes power outages, it’s a win-win: you help your community by needing less power and you save money. You may also be able to rely less on burning fuels indoors to stay warm.
I hope this episode has made holiday shopping a little easier. Giving the gift of clean air—to yourself, your loved ones, or your community—is always a great choice. It’s especially important right now, when times are financially uncertain for so many. It’s always better to breathe cleaner air: it keeps us healthier, we’re able to go to school and work, and we’re better prepared to face whatever comes our way.
To Do-
- To learn more about the health impacts of gas stoves, listen to The Fire Inside episode.
- To learn more about gas-powered lawn equipment, listen to The Yards on Fire episode.
- HEPA filters and other technologies are covered in multiple episodes, including Our Health and Wildfire Season and The Air Inside When the Smoke Is Outside.
- To find out what your state, county, or city could do for clean air for all, listen to last season’s episode: Bypassing Toxic Politics: Clean Air and Climate Action at the State and Local Level.
- Finally, consider a gift to your local food bank. It is so important during the holidays to make sure everyone has enough to celebrate.
Have a wonderful holiday season, and I will be back in 2026.
TLDR= Don't Light Things on Fire and Breathe them into your Lungs
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