I have had a sewer gas problem in my house for several years. The source of the smell appears to be under a half bath on the first floor which is most noticeable in the basement directly below. I have had the stool reset twice using an extender and the seal is apparently good but I have my doubts. What is the best way to detect if the seal is air tight? Would a smoke test help?
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Ha! I just went thru this. Client had her septic tank pumped and a sewer gas smell slowly started to build up in the house. The culprit turned out to be a completely open 2" pipe inside the wall. The previous owner had reconfigured the laundry area and had abandoned a P-trap in the wall without capping it. After the water evaporated out of the trap the gas could get out, and the pumping of the tank made the situation a lot worse.
Anyway, my plumber rigged up a smoke injection machine using a bath fan and some smoke-bomb-looking things he got from a testing place. They sell the machines too but they are expensive and not worth it unless you do this all the time. He injected some smoke into the roof vent and it came out of the abandoned trap. The best part was that there is a fair amount of T&G paneling in the house and the source of the smoke was easy to find.
Barring that, I would remove some sheetrock and start following the pipes. If you have one open it should not be hard to find.
In the course of this search-and-destroy project we found a large number of places where some numbskull shot finish nails into the drains and vents.
Forgot to add.... for your particular problem our erstwhile poster Plumbbill recommends building a dam around the toilet base using wet towels, then fill with water... flush the toilet and if bubbles appear you have a leaky wax ring.