The neighbourhood is not on the 2025 list of Rīgas ūdens (Riga's water utility) of neighbourhoods lacking a water main or sewerage, so people here usually install their own source for watering, not for drinking. We work with low-rise houses, blocks of flats and commercial sites at the mouth of the Daugava, where wind, sand and damp call for a well-thought-out pump location. A new spike well costs from €350.
Water in Daugavgrīva: the network, with rare exceptions
Daugavgrīva is a coastal and port neighbourhood at the mouth of the Daugava on the Gulf of Riga, with low-rise housing, blocks of flats, port facilities and military heritage sites. In the 2025 report of Rīgas ūdens, Daugavgrīva is not among the neighbourhoods where services are only partly available. That does not mean every house is connected, so if your house has no connection, check your address with the Rīgas ūdens “Service availability” form.
Daugavgrīva is on the left bank. Rīgas ūdens states that most left-bank consumers receive treated Daugava water from the “Daugava” plant; the company does not publish separately which bank's source supplies each particular street.
If the house still has no connection and the network cannot be reached, your own source becomes the drinking water source, and the requirements for it differ from those for a watering spike well. In that case, we always recommend a full water test after installation. If the spike well water is not good or it gives too little, we consider a borehole with drilling from €65/m: its aquifer is covered from above by denser layers, and the submersible pump sits in the borehole, not in the wind.
Wind, sand and damp: where to put the pump
Being close to the sea, the Daugava and the dunes means strong wind, wind-blown sand and damp air in Daugavgrīva. This does not bother the spike well itself, but it does bother a surface pump standing outdoors. Sand clogs the ventilation openings and wears the bearings, and damp encourages corrosion in the joints and the electrical connection.
- We put the pump in a closed, insulated box or an outbuilding with ventilation, not in the open garden.
- For the casing and joints we choose materials that do not rust in damp conditions, and we connect the power with a damp-proof socket and residual current protection.
- At the end of the watering season we remove or drain the pump, and we drain the pipe from the spike well to the tap before the frost.
How to choose and connect a pump for a spike well: water pump installation. How to prepare the system for winter: winterising the water supply system.
A spike well on a plot where old structures may lie underground
If your plot is clean sand, a spike well is usually driven in quickly. If there is clay, stones or rubble under the topsoil, it has to be drilled, and the location may change. Daugavgrīva has port facilities and military heritage sites, so before the work we ask whether there are old foundations on the plot and find out where the underground utilities run.
Fine sand needs a spike well with a matching filter screen, otherwise the filter clogs quickly and the water turns cloudy. We choose it by the sand that comes up in the first metres. What installation costs and what it does not include: spike well, from €350, usually €350–650.
Water testing near the river mouth
A water test is not compulsory for watering. If you want to use the spike well water for washing vegetables or for drinking, we take a sample, and an accredited laboratory analyses it. Near the mouth of the Daugava, you can also ask the laboratory to include electrical conductivity: it shows how much dissolved salt there is in the water. The reference value in Cabinet Regulation No. 547 on drinking water is 2,500 µS/cm.
A basic test costs from €35, a full test with microbiology from €95. Cabinet Regulation No. 547 is not compulsory for a single household's source, but the laboratory compares the result against it, and we explain what it means: water testing.
Near nature areas
There are protected nature areas and dunes near Daugavgrīva. If your plot borders them, check with the municipal building authority (būvvalde) before the work whether extra restrictions apply. For a spike well used for your own needs, the Protection Zone Law sets no protection zone, as long as the surroundings are landscaped and wastewater does not get into the ground.
In the regulations, a spike well is a water abstraction borehole. A spike well up to 20 m deep, from which no more than 10 m³ is taken per day, does not need a licence from the State Environmental Service (VVD). Ask the Riga building authority about an explanatory memorandum (paskaidrojuma raksts) for a new spike well.
Sources: Rīgas ūdens, contract performance report for 2025 (Daugavgrīva is not on the list) and “Water abstraction”; Cabinet Regulation No. 547, sub-point 4.5 and Annex 1 (electrical conductivity 2,500 µS/cm); the Protection Zone Law, the second paragraph of Section 9; LBN 222-15, point 64; the law “On Subterranean Depths”, point 2 of the first paragraph of Section 11; Cabinet Regulation No. 253, sub-point 1 of point 6². Checked 03.11.2026.
For blocks of flats and commercial sites
In blocks of flats in Daugavgrīva the water comes from the network, so whole-house iron removal is usually not needed. If you do not like the taste or limescale builds up in the kettle, a reverse osmosis filter for the kitchen does the job, with installation from €250. For commercial sites near the port, we also install filters and maintain them: water filter maintenance, labour from €40/h.
Nearby neighbourhoods: Bolderāja, Voleri, Mangaļsala on the other bank of the Daugava, and Vecāķi on the coast. All neighbourhoods: Riga.