The residential sector accounts for a relevant share of global energy use; therefore it is important to use as much renewable energy as possible to satisfy its demand. Geothermal energy, among others, is nowadays used for this scope: more and more buildings in several countries are exploiting the underground to satisfy domestic heating, cooling and hot water demand by means of ground-source heat pumps. On the long run heat extraction/injection can lead to depletion of the ground as heat source/sink. Current tools only allow a designer to take into account the depletion of the ground caused by the system she or he is designing. However, the actual total heat depletion is also influenced by the surrounding systems. With the growing diffusion of ground-source heat pumps the ability of estimating the total underground heat depletion is of paramount importance. The aim of the article is to give an insight of the problem: the goal is to show what will happen in the underground if residential ground source heat pump systems are designed without taking into account the presence of neighbouring installations. The study is performed for different types of soil and borehole heat exchangers designs.