Why Is My Thermostat Screen Blank, and Is the Furnace or AC Still Working?
A blank thermostat screen usually means lost power: dead batteries, a tripped furnace switch, a blown board fuse or a condensate switch. What to check first.
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St. Michael grew from about 5,400 people in 1990 to more than 16,000 by 2010 along I-94, with the Church of St. Michael still marking the old town center and the Crow River on its eastern edge.
We repair and replace furnaces, air conditioners, heat pumps, boilers and ductless mini-splits in Saint Michael and across Wright County. Every visit starts with a $79 trip charge and a written price before any work, and the $79 is waived when you go ahead with the repair.
The city says Xcel Energy supplies electricity to most of St. Michael with Wright-Hennepin serving the rest, and gas comes from CenterPoint Energy or, in some areas, Xcel Energy.
Updated September 23, 2026

Around town: Church of St. Michael · Interstate 94 · Crow River · Highway 241
Book in Saint MichaelSt. Michael grew up around the Church of St. Michael, with a post office since 1858, but it stayed a small farm-country town, about 1,500 residents in 1980. Then the building started: 5,400 residents by 1990, 9,100 by 2000 and 16,400 by 2010. Three decades of subdivisions means the housing splits cleanly by era. The 1980s homes are mostly ramblers and split-entries, likely on their second furnace. The 1990s and 2000s brought larger two-stories and walk-outs, and the late-2000s houses are the youngest of the boom, many still on original equipment.
The city also covers about 36 square miles, much of it still rural, so acreage homes with propane, wells and pole buildings sit inside the city limits alongside the subdivisions. The Crow River forms the eastern boundary. A few blocks of older homes near the church hold most of the pre-1950 houses, with chimney venting and smaller basements.
St. Michael's 36 square miles include a lot of rural road, and winter on the acreage parcels runs on propane. Keep the tank topped up before long cold stretches and plow a path to it, because a drifted lane can hold up a delivery. In the subdivisions, open fields at the edges of town let snow drift against side-wall PVC vents on the windward side of the house. Clear them after each storm, and if one keeps burying, we can raise the terminations or move them to a sheltered wall.
Upstairs bedrooms in St. Michael's two-stories run hot in July for the same reason the main floor runs cool in January: one blower and one thermostat serve two floors with very different loads. A two-stage or variable-speed system running longer at low speed evens things out better than a single-stage unit cycling hard. Running the fan on circulate, opening the upstairs dampers for summer and closing blinds on west windows help in the meantime. Walk-out lower levels stay cool on their own and need less air in summer.
Start with your bills in St. Michael. Most of the city buys electricity from Xcel Energy, which offers heat pump and cooling rebates, often through a Trade Partner Network contractor, and the rest is on Wright-Hennepin, which lists air-source heat pump rebates and a heat pump tune-up rebate credited on the bill. Gas comes from CenterPoint Energy, whose heating rebates let you use any dealer, or in some areas from Xcel Energy, whose gas furnace rebate points to a participating contractor.
Rebate programs change every year; check the utility's current terms before you buy. Our guides: Xcel and CenterPoint rebates, heat pump rebates, what happened to the federal credits.
Central Minnesota Heating and Cooling serves Saint Michael and the rest of Wright County, about 25 miles from downtown Minneapolis. We repair and replace furnaces, central air, heat pumps, boilers and ductless mini-splits, and we're open 7 days, 7am–9pm. Call 612-429-3465.
A flat $79 trip charge, waived when you approve the repair. Written price before any work; same prices in every town we serve. Installed prices are on our pricing page.
Often. If the upstairs and main floor are fed by separate branches in the basement, we can add motorized dampers, a zone panel and a second thermostat without opening finished walls. It works best with a two-stage or variable-speed furnace that can run at low output for one zone. If both floors share branches, a ductless head upstairs may be the simpler route.
You don't have to. But an original single-stage furnace from the early 2000s is near the end of a typical service life, and a planned replacement lets you pick equipment, line up rebates and schedule on a mild day instead of taking whatever is in stock during a January no-heat call. If the inspection finds it in good shape, we will tell you to keep running it.
It depends on the area. The city lists CenterPoint Energy as the gas utility, with Xcel Energy serving some parts of St. Michael, so the name on your gas bill is the answer. It matters when you replace a furnace, because the rebate comes from your gas utility and the two programs have different rules: CenterPoint lets you use any dealer, while Xcel points to a participating contractor.
Start with the floor and the duct. The garage ceiling under that room should be insulated and air-sealed, since garage air leaking up at the floor edges makes the room feel cold. The supply duct usually runs a long way through cold space, so sealing and insulating it helps, and a return lets air circulate. If the room is still off after that, a ductless head gives it its own control.
A blank thermostat screen usually means lost power: dead batteries, a tripped furnace switch, a blown board fuse or a condensate switch. What to check first.
Read the guideWall-mounted or floor-console mini-split heads? Which suits each Minnesota room, plus drains, line routing, snow and the outdoor unit, and mixing styles.
Read the guideWhy one room in a Minnesota house stays too hot or too cold, a symptom-to-fix table, and the order we check registers, returns, filter, dampers and ducts.
Read the guideBrands we service in Saint Michael: AirEase · Amana · American Standard · Ameristar · Aprilaire · Arcoaire · Armstrong Air · Bosch · Broan-NuTone · Bryant · Buderus · Burnham · Carrier · Champion · Coleman · Comfortmaker · Concord · Daikin · Day & Night · Ducane · ecobee · Frigidaire · Fujitsu · Gibson · Goodman · Google Nest · Gree · Heil · Honeywell Home · Lennox · LG · Lifebreath · Lochinvar · Luxaire · Maytag · Midea · Mitsubishi Electric · MrCool · Navien · NTI · Payne · Peerless · Rheem · Rinnai · RunTru · Ruud · Samsung · Santa Fe · Tempstar · Trane · Triangle Tube · Utica Boilers · Viessmann · Weil-McLain · Westinghouse · York
Heat out in Saint Michael? Call or send a request.