The rise of home renovation shows has helped glamorise DIY but take the cameras and personalities away and the situation is quite different — especially when it comes to tackling heritage buildings.

The projects can be painstakingly slow and specialist craftspeople are few and far between.

Tasmanian bricklayer Martyn Jordan, who specialises in brickwork styles from the Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian periods, is flat out.

"I've always got 12 months' work in front of me and there's always people waiting," Mr Jordan said.

A spike in property restorations, spurred by the Apple Isle's tourism boom, has led to a huge demand for heritage services.

"There's a vast amount of building that went on in the 1830 period," Mr Jordan said.

"That's generally what gets done up today, all around that period.

"They were built well, it's only a lack of maintenance that's why they've deteriorated, otherwise they'd be still as they were first built."

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