General Information

RTG¹ Construction is a set of technical regulations for new residential, office, or commercial buildings and new additions, both air-conditioned and non-air-conditioned.

Guidelines

The purpose of RTG Construction is to create comfortable building temperatures while reducing the need for air conditioning. The basic principles are:

1. Regulations are results driven

Regulations based on overall building performance allow designers to choose their own solutions. For residential construction, this results-driven focus is a vast improvement on the RTAA DOM, which focused on construction methods. Builders have been asking for a greater amount of freedom in order to optimize the technical and economic aspects of their business.

RTG Construction bases performance on two indicators:

• Thermal comfort indicator (indicateur de confort thermique, ICT): The number of hours in which the corrected indoor air temperature is at or above 30°C, as a share of total hours of occupancy
• Energy requirement indicator, or Bbio: weighted combination of the energy needed for air conditioning and lighting in normal conditions

These two indicators are compared to reference figures to determine compliance. A thermal engineering office makes this calculation using tools provided to construction professionals by the regional government.

2. No “one-size-fits-all” policies

A variety of technical points were incorporated into the consensus workshops to establish these conditions, such as Guadeloupe’s microclimates. Builders supported this point as a way to better account for wind and ventilation conditions in the various geographic areas.

3. New regulations are consistent with existing regulations

Applying RTG Construction

RTG Construction comes into play at various points in a construction project:

1. Design
The project owner consults with a thermal engineering company to ensure the structure is compliant with RTG Construction rules. Review of compliance at the design stage helps optimize project costs while ensuring thermal comfort and energy needs are adequate.

2. Early stages of construction
When the project owner submits the building permit, they include a sworn statement that RTG Construction requirements have been integrated into the project.

2. Completion
The project owner has the structure inspected by a third party.

[1] Réglementation thermique de la Guadeloupe, RTG: Guadeloupe’s Thermal Regulations