BS they include equipment. Everything we needed was either bought by us on grant money, or was part of some collaborative grant for the whole department. E.g. and imaging lab that maybe had a SEM or two-photon, etc.

What you bought on one grant, and then is lab equipment being maintained and serviced afterwards is now "facilities" costs.

The university definitely doesn't "service" it at all. If it breaks, you call up the company and hope its under warranty, or you pay someone to fix it, again off the grant funds.

I guess it's fairies performing all those calibrations and restocking all those consumables that can't easily be charged to individual projects.

They did jack crap. Anything more complicated than a light-bulb or a toilet that broke, the lab handled it internally somehow (either getting the company to fix it or doing it ourselves).

There were a few department-wide resources. Again, ultimately funded off someone (or a bunch of people's) grants

Funded as indirect costs.

The "A" of F&A is capped at 26%.

That means any overhead over 26% went to some kind of facilities cost at your lab.

(Most private industry informal accounting would call that 26% "20% overhead").