Most in-ground heat storage installations use a system of horizontal or vertical plastic pipes to carry heat exchanger fluid. In designing these systems it is generally assumed that the thermal effects of the plastic pipe can be neglected. This paper reports a laboratory study of the pattern of heat flow around fluid-carrying plastic pipe buried in clay soil. Heat flow measurements as well as estimated contact resistances are presented for a number of configurations. In addition, numerical model computations are given for steady-state, transient and cyclic behaviour of several configurations, and it is shown that substantially reduced heat flows are obtained when plastic pipe is used.