Rīgas ūdens is building a new water main, but not for the whole neighbourhood, so many houses will keep their own source even afterwards. We help you decide whether your house needs a spike well (“spice” in Latvian), a borehole, or whether sorting out the existing well is enough, and then we do the work.
Where Mangaļsala's water comes from now
In the Rīgas ūdens 2025 contract performance report, Mangaļsala is named among three neighbourhoods with more than 1,000 residents that have no mains water supply and sewerage. On 14.04.2026 the company explained that the water is abstracted from four boreholes on private land and treated in pressure filters on the former Gamma A site. This local system mainly supplies the existing multi-storey buildings, about 540 residents, and its networks and treatment equipment are worn out and in critical condition.
The rest of the neighbourhood is detached houses, summer houses and low-rise buildings between the mouth of the Daugava, the sea and the coastal forests. For houses not connected to the local system, water comes from their own wells, spike wells and boreholes, and the owner is responsible for its quality. The average quality figures for the city network do not apply to Mangaļsala, and we found no published hardness or iron figures for the local system.
What the new water main will change and whom it will not reach
Rīgas ūdens planned to start construction in summer 2026, with completion provisionally scheduled for autumn 2028. The project includes 6.75 km of water main, gravity and pressure sewerage and three pump stations on Traleru, Albatrosu and Stāvvadu iela. The water main will enter Mangaļsala from the Vecmīlgrāvis side, crossing the Audupe at a depth of 8 m from Laivinieku iela.
- Mains: Stāvvadu, Veiksmes, Albatrosu, Audupes, Traleru, Vižņu and Vaduguņu iela.
- Branches to the red line (the street boundary): for more than 100 properties.
- Rīgas ūdens itself stresses that the project does not provide a water main and sewerage for all of Mangaļsala.
So we start by looking at your address. If the house is on one of these streets, you will be able to connect once the work is finished, and until then a cheap, well-thought-out solution is enough. If your street is not on the list, your own source will still be your water source after 2028, and it is worth investing in it properly.
Wait or drill: the three most common situations
| Situation | What we usually suggest | Why |
|---|---|---|
| House on a street that will get a main and a branch | Clean the existing well or install a spike well, not a new borehole for drinking water | After connection, a drinking water borehole will become unnecessary |
| House outside the project streets, lived in all year | A borehole or spike well with a pump station and a filter based on the test | Your own source will remain the main water source |
| Summer house or garden | A spike well with a surface pump, emptied in autumn | Low water use and seasonal use |
If you connect to the new network later, you may keep the old spike well for watering, but only as a completely separate system. Riga City Council binding regulations No. 17 forbid connecting the network of a local water source, such as a borehole, to the city water main, including through the house's internal pipework.
Dunes, sand and narrow roads: how they change the work
Descriptions of Mangaļsala's setting are dominated by dunes, sand, coastal forests and the sea wind. In sandy ground a spike well can usually be driven or drilled without heavy machinery, and it is the cheapest source if the water level during pumping stays within a surface pump's reach, in practice 7–8 m. Nobody knows in advance how deep the water is on your particular plot or what it is like, so we promise neither quantity nor quality: drilling and the laboratory show that.
Fine dune sand needs a filter with a suitably fine screen, otherwise the spike well soon clogs and the pump starts drawing sand. If a drinking water test finds a lot of iron or bacteria, the next step is water treatment or a deeper layer reached by a borehole in Mangaļsala.
A narrower road network leads to Mangaļsala from the Vecāķi and Vecdaugava side. Before we bring a drilling rig or a concrete-ring lorry, we check whether it can get onto the plot, and for summer houses we agree a time when the owner is on site.
For a summer house: a source that survives the winter
In a house that is not lived in during winter, what matters more than the depth of the source is whether the system will survive the winter. The surface pump, the pressure tank and the outdoor pipes are emptied in autumn, and the pump is put where the water in it will not freeze. Step by step: winterising the water supply system. What to consider when choosing a source for a seasonal house: spike well for a summer house. If the garden already has an old dug well, it is worth cleaning it before summer: well cleaning in Mangaļsala.
Paperwork for your own source in Mangaļsala
In the regulations a spike well is a borehole. Like a dug well, it needs no licence from the State Environmental Service (VVD) if the depth does not exceed 20 m and abstraction is no more than 10 m³ per day. For a borehole deeper than 20 m, the drilling company applies for the licence (state fee €35.57), and after the work the Latvian Environment, Geology and Meteorology Centre (LVĢMC) approves the borehole passport for €115.34, which is a state fee, not our price.
A new well or borehole is a first-group engineering structure, for which the regulations require an explanatory memorandum (paskaidrojuma raksts) at the municipal building authority (būvvalde). The VVD diagrams describe this step differently, so before the work ask the Riga building authority what it expects.
Sources: the Rīgas ūdens contract performance report for 2025; its announcement on the Mangaļsala networks (14.04.2026); Riga City Council binding regulations No. 17, point 63.6; the law “On Subterranean Depths”, point 2 of the first part of Section 11; Cabinet Regulation No. 1055, sub-point 2.13; Cabinet Regulation No. 752, point 2.1 of the annex; LBN 222-15, point 64; Cabinet Regulation No. 253, sub-point 1 of point 6.². Checked 03.11.2026.
Prices and neighbouring areas
In Mangaļsala the same prices apply as across Riga, with no call-out surcharge: a spike well from €350, borehole drilling from €65/m, well cleaning with disinfection from €150. The pump, the pressure tank and the pipe to the house are priced separately. Worked examples: prices.
Nearby: Vecdaugava, Vecāķi, Vecmīlgrāvis and, across the Daugava, Daugavgrīva. An overview of the capital: Riga; all places: where we work.